


the straight walk home

by vowelinthug



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe, Billy/Vane, Canon-Typical Violence, Cowboys, F/F, F/M, Jack/Anne, M/M, Max/Anne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-08-18 08:54:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 73,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8156377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vowelinthug/pseuds/vowelinthug
Summary: Let me tell you a story, about a vaquero named Vasquez...





	1. the arrival

**Author's Note:**

> E rated but like, later  
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 

_September 5, 1875_

 

The sun slipped down in front of The Walrus Gang as they raced further across the plains.

Blinded by the fierce light and the sand kicked up by their horses, the gang followed the trail left by their traitor as best they could. Although none of them had any lingering doubts as to where the traitor was headed.

They were all bone-tired, beyond the dizzying ache of hunger. They only stopped for water, barely stopped to rest. They were all kept upright on their mounts by sheer fury.

Except for Calico Jack and Anne Bonny. The only two of them to share a horse, they took the reins in turns. Currently, Jack was passed out on Anne's back, his hands held together around her waist by some rope to keep from falling off. It was a sign to their exhaustion: he was completely undisturbed by her long red hair whipping his eyelids as she rode, his cheeks and lips dusted with sand where his handkerchief slipped. But Flint didn't slow the pace any, even when it became obvious Singleton was headed straight back for home.

The edge of the sun hit the edge of the horizon, and they stopped at the familiar old weathered sign pointing straight to Nassau, Kansas.

Anne tore the handkerchief from her face. "Why the fuck is he going back there?" She looked like she would spit if she had any saliva to spare. "He knows we're after him."

Billy Bones pulled his horse up beside hers. His face was cracked and peeling from sunburns over sunburns. He pointedly did not look at Flint.

"He's running scared," Billy said, his voice rougher than the road they traveled. "He's desperate."

Or Singleton had been planning this from the beginning, Flint didn't say.

"Probably rounding up some extra guns," Billy continued. "He needs a new crew, now."

Or he had one already, waiting for him to return with Vasquez's map. Flint kept his scarf over his mouth. The sun continued to sink.

"Then he should have fucking gone to any other town," Anne said furiously, her hands tight on the reins. "We might never of caught up to him if he'd done that."

Vane said nothing, as usual. But in all the time he ran with Flint's gang, Flint had never heard him utter a word. Vane stayed outside the circle now, kept his eyes on the trail just in case the wind shifted and it happened to change.

Jack shifted, his eyes still closed but all pretense of sleep gone. "He's probably planning to meet someone, darling," he muttered into the back of Anne's hair. "While I wouldn't put it past Singleton to be stupid enough to steal from us, I can't in good faith credit him with the intelligence to steal from us and _get away with it_."

Not only had Singleton gotten away with it, he'd left them alive in the process, when the sensible thing would have been to put a bullet in each of them while they slept. Which implied this was about much more that $200,000 buried in a safe deep in the Rocky Mountains.

Which meant they were probably riding right into a trap.

James "the Captain" Flint -- leader of the most notorious crew of thieves west of the Appalachian trail, personally responsible for countless brutal Confederate deaths during the war -- lowered his scarf from his face.

"Since we know the way," he said, moving his horse to the forefront, "there's no reason at all for us to stop for the night. Is there?"

* * *

In a town as wild as Nassau, there was only ever a small window of quiet: when all the fights had ended, when the drunks were all collapsed in dirty alleyways, when the whores had a moment to themselves to count their day’s earnings by twilight. An hour, maybe an hour and a half. Before the farmers on the edge of town would begin stirring in their beds, their wives already up and making coffee and waking the children to send them out into the fields and begin their day’s work. Shortly thereafter the good townsfolk would wake from their slumbers, would rise to the day and forget all about the night’s misdeeds as though they were naught but a bad dream - the gunsmith, the hardware store owner, the sheriff, the grocer, the madame, the barkeep: all settling in to start business as usual.

But an hour, maybe an hour and a half, Nassau would go still and dark in the middle of nowhere, would disappear into itself and become indistinguishable from the night sky.

It was during this hour when the Walrus Gang arrived.

They idled in the street, letting their horses take a much needed drink from the trough. Flint saw his crew exchange looks with each other but none of them glanced in his direction.

Flint eyed the blackened windows, hands clenched tight on his reins. He knew what he wanted to do at that moment and he knew every argument against it. If they started kicking down doors, turning over beds in the dark, they'd just as soon arouse Singleton from wherever he slept instead of find him, and he could escape in the night and be gone forever. It would be foolish to start their search now, when they were all weary and aching, dehydrated and angry.

Flint still wanted to do it. He wanted to yell, to alight, to feel wood splinter beneath his boots. He wanted to disturb the peace for everyone else.

They called Nassau home but they didn't really have one here. They found themselves stopping here often, and had become friendly with several locals, but they had no residence to speak of. They usually stayed in the hotel or the brothel, and neither were an option at this hour. The thought of trying to set up a camp, though, after such a long ride, was close to unbearable.

“C’mon,” said Billy, near Flint’s elbow. “I know a barn we could hunker down in. Farmer Gunn is a friend, and is likely not to shoot us on sight.”

Flint said nothing. Just jerked his head shortly to let Billy lead the way.

 _Barn_ was too generous of a term. _Shack_ was probably more appropriate. They lit no candles, and there was barely a moon to guide them. Flint felt more like a ghost than he normally did.

Silently, Jack pulled Anne into one corner with some musty sheets, and even Vane went over to join them, which was a testament to how tired they really were. Vane slept less than Flint.

Billy and Flint watched them curl up on themselves like sleepy children, and Flint caught the small look of longing that passed over Billy's face for just a second. Then his scowl was back, directed at Flint, as usual.

“Are you actually going to sleep?” he asked.

Flint made a face. He felt tired everywhere but in his heart, which beat away at a rabbit’s pace -- quick and on the run. In the quiet of the night, he could hear it thunder in his ears.

“We’re gonna find him.” Billy kept his voice low, but Flint doubted a stampede of wild cattle could wake the three on the floor. “But if you don’t sleep now you won’t last another day.”

“Do you care,” said Flint, and he faced towards Billy despite the darkness. “what we do to Singleton once we find him?”

Now Billy made a face at him. Flint couldn’t help but smile a little at it. “Fuck no,” said Billy. “It wasn’t just your future he stole.”

Flint nodded, and pat Billy on the shoulder. Billy liked to act as though he hated the Walrus Gang, but Flint had seen him empty his pistols into anyone trying to threaten them time and time again. “Go sleep, we only have a few hours. I promise,” he added, feeling Billy about to start, “I will too. I just want to make sure Farmer Gunn isn’t actually going to storm in any moment with a shotgun.”

“Ben wouldn’t do that,” Billy protested. “I told you, he’s a friend.”

“Ben? This the one that’s sweet on you?”

Despite the dark, despite the closest light a candle left on a windowsill half a mile down the road, Flint could still see Billy flush angrily.

“It’s not like that,” Billy hissed, because he wanted to yell. “He’s a _friend_. Not everyone always wants something from you, you know.”

“No,” Flint agreed. “But isn’t it easier when they do?”

All at once, the strength to deal with Flint seemed to leave Billy completely. He sagged against the door frame for a moment before pushing off with a sigh.

“See you at first light,” he said, wandering over to the others. “If I see you haven’t slept I’m going to fucking knock you out and throw you over the back of my horse for the rest of the day.” He was asleep before Flint could even respond.

Flint went outside the shack and sat down against the side of it. Unfurling the scarf from around his neck, he watched the purple-gray clouds drift slowly away from the half moon, illuminating Farmer Gunn’s crops some but not much else. The rocky formations in the distance to his right were black, hulking shapes like the shadows of monsters, and Nassau to the left hadn’t been disturbed in the slightest by their ride through it.

The clouds were heavy and multiple, though there was no lightning, no thunder. Not yet. Cool night air raised bumps along his forearms, and he idly stroked the long, ugly scar that wrapped itself around his throat. He wondered how much it rained in the Rocky Mountains. He wondered how far spread the settlements along Boulder Creek ran. He wondered if the ground would be muddied or hard-packed, how close the trees grew together, how wide the river spanned. He dreamt he was digging.

He awoke with a start to someone kicking his foot sharply. He shifted his hat which had slipped down over his eyes in his sleep and squinted at Eleanor Guthrie. Her man O’Malley stood behind her, one hand on the reins of their horses, the other resting comfortably on his holstered gun. Farmer Gunn was behind him, anxiously gripping a shovel like a spear.

“What the fuck is going on?” Eleanor said by way of good morning. How someone could be that angry at just dawn, Flint didn’t know.  “The Sheriff is looking for you everywhere.”

Flint put his scarf back on and achily climbed to his feet. His back hurt from the long ride and from sleeping on a fucking wall all night, and his shoulder hurt because it always hurt. It took him too long a moment to stretch through the pain to remember where the hell he was and why.

“Why the fuck is Scott looking for us already?” he asked, looking back into the shack. The others were beginning to stir from their pile. “We only arrived early this morning.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Eleanor. “I fucking heard you. I was awake, dealing with your fucking mess.”

“Mess?” Suddenly, Flint felt no pain. Suddenly he felt awake. “What mess?”

‘Your man -- Singleton? He’s dead.” She put her hands on her hips. “Cocksucker turned up late last night with a fucking bullet between his eyes. So I ask again, calmly,  sweetly, from the bottom of my fucking heart: what the _fuck?_ ”

* * *

He left the others downstairs in Guthrie's Saloon to eat a quick breakfast while he sat with Eleanor in her office. He knew he should eat too, but at the moment he could only stomach coffee. Even if it was Eleanor's coffee, which always had the taste and consistency of hot tar.  
  
He wasn't about to comment on it, though. Not with the sour look on her face that hadn't left since they rode back into town.  
  
"I'd figured when he rode into town alone, you hadn't parted on good terms," she said. She stood out on her balcony, leaning against the railing. "So I don't suspect you're devastated Singleton's dead."  
  
"Not for the reason you're thinking, anyway," Flint admitted, chewing around his coffee. "Where's the body?"  
  
"At the Sheriff's," Eleanor said.  
  
"Where was he found?"  
  
Eleanor came back inside and sat down at her large desk. She took a sip of her own coffee and didn't even flinch, which was a testament to her strength of character, Flint thought. "One of Max's girls stumbled over him, quite fucking literally, behind the post office long after the sun had set. By the time Max called on me, and I called on Sheriff Scott, his body was cold and looted. No trace of anyone else in the area."  
  
Flint respected Eleanor, and trusted her enough to be telling him the truth, even if it was the last fucking thing he wanted to hear. "He had nothing on him?" He tried not to sound too angry, or too despairing. Just his usual amount.  "Not even a piece of paper?"  
  
Eleanor raised an eyebrow. "By the time I got there, even his boots were gone. Flint, what the fuck is going on?"  
  
Nassau wasn't a completely decent, God-fearing town, but it had made great strides towards civilization ever since Eleanor took control of Guthrie's Saloon from her ailing criminal father. Even though the Guthrie name was only listed on the tavern, the family had their fingers in every business, legitimate or otherwise, that occurred in or through Nassau. Eleanor, unlike her father, saw longevity in keeping things as honest as possible, so she'd appointed a sheriff, kept the violence to a minimum during the day, and only helped launder stolen money and sell stolen goods from the few outlaws she happened to like. It made everyone act real sweet to her, which Flint knew did more harm than good.

Still, bodies dropped in Nassau. Bodies dropped everywhere. But unless someone was ill, in a fight, or collecting money, bodies rarely showed up for no clear reason. And even though the bounty on Singleton’s head wasn't as high as the one on Flint’s, it was still decent cash, so even if the cause was just a drunken fistfight, abandoning Singleton in an alleyway was as good as leaving behind $1000 in clean dollar bills.

“He stole from us,” Flint said.

“Thanks for that kernel of information,” said Eleanor, “but I’m not, in fact, a fucking idiot. I figured that out for myself.”

“I don’t know if it’s why he was killed,” Flint added, and decided to throw her a bone. “But it was very valuable.”

Eleanor paused. “A singular something?”

Flint said nothing, scratching his beard. He wanted to tell Eleanor everything, in a way. But even though she bitched about needing to know everything, he suspected she knew her life would be a lot simpler without the whole truth.

She sighed, stood up and went back to her balcony, and he put on his hat and followed her out. Nassau went about its day, unaware of them looking down. It was remarkable, really, how the small town had changed since he’d first arrived eight years ago. Back then, the days were as dangerous as the nights. Now, there were actual families walking around unafraid. Children running in the streets, men talking and not with their fists, store owners conducting honest business transactions without their hands resting on the barrel of a shotgun. They were only on the second story of Guthrie’s Saloon, and even though the main street wasn’t silent, it still looked peaceful to Flint.

“When your man showed up dead,” Eleanor said, “I was initially afraid it would spark bad blood between us, that you might seek vengeance from Nassau in response to the slight, even if Singleton was, and I’m quoting you here, ‘a coarse, ugly motherfucker.’ I’ve sensed, and I think you have too, that the ground here is shifting beneath our feet. I’ve not made it a secret that I’m trying to legitimize this place, that one day our professional relationship would have to end, and it had been my hope to do it as cordially as fucking possible.”

“I’ve got a lot of respect for what you’re doing here, Eleanor,” said Flint, because he did.

“This is bad fucking timing, is what it is. A bitch of bad timing.” She fiddled with her steel coffee mug for a moment, and Flint let her wrestle with whatever it was, not quite ready to face the reality that his long sought-after chance for escape had potentially disappeared into thin air. Finally, she said, “In two days time, a representative from Kansas Pacific is meeting here with me. A railway station within even five miles of here would bring enough commerce to Nassau and with it, actual prosperity.”

Flint nodded. “But you don’t have the funds to convince someone to build a station near a lawless, rowdy town where people get gunned down in the street,” he guessed.

“No,” said Eleanor, “but I do have the money to convince someone to build a railroad near a _slightly_ lawless, _sometimes_ rowdy town where people only get gunned down in the privacy of their own properties. Do you see my goddamn point?”

Flint did. The West was changing. Outlaws like the Walrus Gang were beginning to be more of a hindrance than a help to Nassau, and it wasn’t long before it could no longer serve as a safe trading post for them. He didn’t begrudge her it. The idea suited him fine.

“Nothing would make me happier,” he said, “to never see you or this town again, despite all the good it and you have served me over the years.”

Eleanor blinked at that, then abruptly turned and went back inside. “I need this dealt with immediately,” she said, going back to her desk. She handed Flint a piece of paper. “I just need to know I don’t have a trigger-happy cocksucker roaming around town, or that I won’t be caught in the middle of a fucking blood feud by the time Kansas Pacific shows up.”

Flint gestured with the paper. “What is this?”

“That is a copy of the list Sheriff Scott has, of everyone who might have had a reason to shoot Mr. Singleton, which is basically anyone who came into contact with him yesterday. Honestly, I’d put myself as a fucking suspect if I didn’t have a sure alibi. Why the hell was this motherfucker on your crew anyway?”

“He was as mean as he looked,” Flint said with a shrug. “No bank teller ever thought twice about handing anything over to him. And he could handle himself with a gun.”

“Well maybe he shot himself in the head and I can get some goddamn rest.”

Flint looked over the list. He frowned. “He went to a fucking circus?”

Now Eleanor shrugged. “Mr. Gates’s Authentic Wild West and Medicine Show, just passed the edge of town near the hotel. One of those touring companies, you know, with Indian dances and...fucking sharpshooters and split whiskey sold as miracle cures. Tonight’s their last night here, although I doubt you’ll have any time to take in the festivities.”

Flint was still confused. He’d known Singleton for almost two years, and in that time he had never seen the man enjoy himself _once_. “Why the fuck would he go there?”

“How the fuck should I know?" Eleanor sat down behind her desk. "Maybe he went to get fucking shot.” 

* * *

For a moment Billy thought, as he watched Flint descend the stairs from Eleanor Guthrie’s office with a paper in his hand, that Flint had actually found the fucking map. He could kick himself for the momentary lapse, looking at Flint’s face. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

He hadn’t even really believed it before, when Flint had first opened that safety deposit box in the back room of the First National Bank of Kansas City. It had been just the two of them back there - Singleton and Anne dealing with the tellers and grabbing the petty cash while Jack and Vane worked over the bank manager into opening the main safe.

The two of them had been working fast, silent, cracking open every box and stuffing jewels, banknotes, stock papers into their bags until he felt Flint -- _stop,_ behind him. Billy would never forget the expression on the Captain’s face, would never forget the slight tremor in Flint’s hand as he wordlessly handed Billy the folded map. The only other item in the box had been Vasquez’s death certificate.

They hadn’t even stopped to empty the other deposit boxes. They just grabbed the rest of the Walrus Gang and high-tailed it out of there.

“So what did she say?” Jack asked as Flint approached. Jack was drinking whiskey even though it was only 9 in the morning, but Billy figured he’d ridden four days out of Kansas City stone sober, and the fact that Jack wasn’t swimming in a whiskey barrel right now was a goddamn miracle. “What happened to him?”

Flint exhaled sharply. “We don’t know yet. They managed to figure out everyone who probably spoke with Singleton yesterday for the few hours he was in town alive. The Sheriff is speaking to all these people and so are we.”

“What the fuck?” Anne snarled. She’d been reclining with her feet on the table, but in an instant she was inches from Flint. “Do we look like fucking _Pinkertons_ to you?”

Flint was perhaps the only person who could remain calm with the full extent of Anne Bonny in their face. “With every second, that map is getting further and further away from us. This is the only lead we have. What the fuck would you have us do?”

Anne snarled, and only stepped away at Jack’s insistent tugging on her sleeve. They were the only ones in the saloon at this time of day, and for a moment no one said anything. Flint handed Billy the list, then reached into his jacket pocket for his tobacco and papers. Billy watched him roll his cigarette instead of looking at the list. Not for the first time since the morning they woke up to find the map and Singleton gone, he wondered if this was all really worth it. Risking so much to find one solitary spot in the Rocky Mountains, for the sake of $200,000 which might not even be there to begin with.

Vasquez’s legend was widely known, but Billy was familiar with the power of stories, and he knew only a part of their power actually laid in the truth. Everyone knew of Vasquez, the prosperous ranch owner in the Texas territory, whose home was burned, his wife raped, his children murdered, and his livelihood destroyed due to a furious gang of white men. Having been left for dead, he swore vengeance on the U.S. Government by stealing from them at every opportunity, all alone. There had never been so prolific a lone thief, without a gang to help, and when he was finally captured in St. Louis last April and hung for his crimes against the government, he hadn’t had a single dollar on him. And so the whereabouts of his stolen loot and the rumors of a map to their hideout became a part of his legend after his death.

No one agreed on who Vasquez really was, who the white men were, why they chose to attack him and his family, if he even had a family at all. There _had_ been a vaquero named Vasquez, and he certainly stole a hell of a lot of money, but those were the only facts Billy knew to be true, and it seemed to him that all this effort was in the aid of chasing a mirage.

And even if it was real, _then_ what? They each got their share of the money and Billy was left with $40,000. What the fuck was he supposed to do with that? He knew Flint had plans. He knew Jack had plans, and Anne usually went along with those plans pretty easily. He had a sneaking suspicion Vane felt similarly to him, for he rarely showed any interest in money or fame, but that didn’t mean he was as without a plan as Billy was.

Flint gestured to Billy, unlit cigarette in his mouth, and Billy held out the list. Flint scowled, knocked his hand to the side, and pointed at the small lit candle on the table. When Billy handed it to him, he lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply, set the candle on the edge of the table, and snatched the list from Billy’s hand.

“We’ll split this up,” Flint said through smoke, looking down at the list again. “I’ll go see the Sheriff, see what he knows, and check over the body to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Billy, stay here in the saloon. He spoke with a lot of people, apparently trying to round up a crew of his own, but see what they say. Jack, head out to the medicine show on the west side of town, he was there last evening. Make sure you talk to everyone. Anne, he stopped at the brothel too in the afternoon, see if he said anything to any of the girls. Vane….go wherever the fuck, I don’t know. Just try to do something productive.”

Billy wondered if Flint was trying to be nice or trying to punish Anne by sending her to Max, but from the sour look on Anne’s face, he knew what she considered it.

“A medicine show?” Jack said, finishing the rest of his drink.  “Was he finally trying to cure himself of his baldness?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Flint said angrily. “Go find out. Not another drink,” he added, “until we find this fucking map.”

Jack rolled his shoulders, placing his hat low over his eyes the same way Anne did. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” Flint groused, ashing his cigarette onto the floor. But Jack and Anne were already stomping out the door, Jack raising one hand in acknowledgment.

Vane made no move to get up from his seat, so Billy guessed he’d be sticking with him. Which was fine. Vane wouldn’t question anyone, but he could make anyone unwilling to talk to them very willing, very easily.

“Do you have a problem with the plan as it stands now?” Flint’s fists were held tight at his sides, and Billy thought he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. The paper crumpled sadly in his hand.

“So the plan is I just sit here and wait for people to come in so I can talk to them?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m fine with this plan.”

“There was no one new in town last night other than Singleton, just the regulars,” Flint said with a huff. “You can ask the bartender if you need to.” His eyes briefly flicked to Vane before adding, “Or Eleanor.”

Vane snorted. Billy turned around to see him sharpening his long hunting knife on a thick strip of leather. He looked completely unconcerned by the potential loss of $200,000, and whether he actually didn’t care or was just pretending to piss Flint off was a mystery to Billy.

But then Flint stormed out himself in a cloud of bitter smoke and furious anxiety, and Billy was left to deal with Vane’s silence on his own. He turned his chair to face the other man and was unsurprised to see Vane completely ignoring his existence. After the better part of a week on horseback, racing across Kansas at a frenzied pace without even a moment to pause and think about what was happening -- the sudden stillness in the saloon unsettled Billy mightily.

With a sigh, Billy threw his hat onto the table. Leaning over for the bottle Jack had abandoned, he said, “What a fucking mess.”

Vane hummed, then spat on the blunt side of his blade and began shining it.

“Do you even care if we find the money?”

Finally, Vane looked up at him. His face was as passive as always, except for the single twitch of his eyebrows, as though to say, “ _Do you?_ ”

Then they sat for a little while, content in a way to be separate from their gang for at least the morning.

Billy wasn’t sure when it happened, his understanding of Vane’s silent way of communicating. It didn’t bother him (the way he suspected it bothered the rest) how Vane never spoke. Vane understood English, and he still had his tongue, Billy knew, because he’d seen it a few times, when Vane took a drink or licked his lips after a fight or when Billy had spied him with a girl once or twice. He knew Vane could read, but he never wrote, either.

Vane, Jack, and Anne had joined up with Flint about three years before Billy did. Jack had happily explained Vane’s story, so either it was the truth and had somehow been communicated to Jack by Vane somehow, or it was an utter fabrication, a story of Jack’s invention. But Vane had been sitting beside him the whole time during the telling without protest so he must have approved it.

Vane never spoke because his father, a white explorer, had raped his mother, the daughter of a Kiowa Apache chief in the Oklahoma panhandle -- according to Calico Jack. While his mother laid in the dirt, feigning unconsciousness, the white man dressed himself with his back to her, which allowed his mother the chance to grab the knife that had fallen from his clothes. She slit the man’s throat before he even turned around. She then removed his eyes, tongue, hands, and genitals, which Billy didn’t think was customary for the Apache, but as Jack pointed out, “Maybe not, but it seems it was customary for Vane’s mother.”

Although her tribe raised Vane as one of their own, his white blood haunted him, and he vowed never to speak in a white man’s tongue or follow a white man’s law as long as he lived.

Billy made it a point not to believe most of the things he heard about other outlaws -- according to their own legends, Flint had survived a hanging, Anne was a lost Russian princess, and Singleton had been a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. But if this was the truth of Vane’s origin, Billy wouldn’t have been all that surprised.

Vane whistled low and quick, and when Billy looked at him he jerked his head towards the back door, quietly holstered his knife, and disappeared fast out the back like mist. Billy figured he was going to take a piss until he heard a voice behind him say, “Just as chatty as always, I see.”

Billy stood on reflex, and watched Eleanor Guthrie circle around to the back of her bar and pull out a bottle of rye. She also grabbed two glasses.

He approached the bar warily. He never really spoke to her before. He wasn’t important enough. And she made him nervous in the same way anyone who seemed too in control of things did. It was one of the reason he was able to run with Flint -- the man had authority, sure, but Billy had seen him in a fight and knew whatever facade of control he had was a thin one.

“I’m surprised you’re able to get a word in edgewise,” Eleanor said, pouring them both a drink.

He didn’t take it. “I don’t talk much myself,” he said.

The corner of Eleanor’s lip twitched. She knocked back her drink in one swig and said, “Shouldn’t you be out there doing something about your fucking dead man?”

“Flint wanted me here to talk to people Singleton spoke with yesterday.”

“I’ll draw up another list,” said Eleanor, rolling her eyes. “I don’t need you two fucking idiots standing around harassing my fucking customers. Besides, I doubt Charles will want to linger.”

The relationship between Eleanor and Vane had been over by the time Billy had joined up with the Walrus Gang two and a half years ago, and he still didn’t understand how it even started. Eleanor wanting to piss off her father, probably. He didn’t guess it was a relationship based on stimulating conversation, anyway.

“What was it like?” he asked, unbidden. It was always a thought that had itched the back of his mind, and who knew when he’d next have the undivided attention of Eleanor Guthrie. “Being involved with someone who never said a word to you?”

For a second a shadow passed over Eleanor’s face, and Billy thought he’d gone over the line, and that same reflex from before made him want to apologize. But then the moment passed, and she poured herself another drink.

“You never go with any of the girls in town, do you?” she asked instead. She gave an unladylike snort. “With Singleton gone, that’ll be none of the Walrus Gang frequenting the brothel in Nassau. Max won’t be pleased.”

Billy shifted but said nothing. He didn’t know why Flint or Vane didn’t go to Max’s, but he himself had no interest in the girls at the brothel, or the girls in this town or any town. He found the lengths people went to in the name of passion ridiculous, and the urge to couple, when it presented itself, was fleeting and often unnoticeable. Some days he thought he should have joined a seminary, but he was just as uninterested in God as he was in sex. But then some days he thought -- if he wasn’t interested in those things and he didn’t care all that much for riches or glory, what the fuck _did_ he want?

“It was intense,” Eleanor said quietly, looking into her cup. She looked young. She looked her age. He wondered when it last was anyone had thought to ask her something personal. “It was animal. I’ve only ever truly liked myself in the moments I was with him, and every time before or after I felt like a goddamn fucking fool.  But you start noticing looks, with a man like that. He started to look at me like he fucking loved me. But I knew he’d never actually fucking _say_ it. And even though I’ve learned that most of what men have to say is fucking useless, the silence got too heavy for me.”

There was a loud crash in the alley where Vane had disappeared. Billy jerked towards it, but then looked back at Eleanor, suddenly unsure.

She hadn’t reacted to the noise. She was staring at Billy curiously. He didn’t like it at all.

“One day you should find someone to fall in love with you,” she said finally. “All you outlaws should. Then maybe you all would finally understand the real desire to _run_.”

There were more loud crashes behind the saloon, now with upraised voices. “Would you like me to go deal with that?” Billy asked.

“Pretty fucking please,” said Eleanor. She finished her drink and took the bottle with her as she head towards the stairs. “I’ll go make up that list for you.”

Vane already had both guns drawn when Billy stepped out into the alley, which wasn’t surprising. Ned Low and his gang had most of their guns drawn as well, which also wasn’t all that surprising. The fact that no one had fired yet, however, came as a bit of a shock.

A thin trickle of blood ran down the corner of Vane’s mouth as he looked over his shoulder at Billy. He didn’t lower his weapons but he did take his fingers off their triggers.

Ned’s man on the ground bled more profusely. Billy watched him half-crawl off the floor to stand behind Ned.

“Mr. Manderley,” said Ned Low in that bland voice of his. “We were just talking about you.”

Slowly, Vane’s fingers returned to their triggers.

“We were just discussing which of the Injun’s gang we were going to kill first,” continued Ned, “once we’re finished with Mr. Singleton.”

Billy made an effort to control his face, to keep it as passive as possible. He wasn’t as good at it as Vane, but then few were.

“What could we have done,” Billy said calmly, moving to stand beside Vane, “to warrant such ire from the Fancy Gang?”

“Don’t fucking call us that,” said one of the men behind Ned.

Ned Low was known for robbing stagecoaches and for being a ruthless fucking asshole. One time a witness gave an account of his experience to the papers, and his description of the men’s attire, from their bowler hats to their waistcoats and pocket chains, was the most lasting image. The papers dubbed them the Fancy Gang and it stuck. After that, they never left any more witnesses.

Ned Low took a step forward. The man at his side, Billy thought was named Meeks, watched him warily. He was one of the few who hadn’t drawn a weapon.

“Your man Singleton tried to recruit some of my men yesterday.” Ned cocked his head to stare at Billy with his one milky blue eye. “I take that as a great insult. My men are loyal to me. They have no interest in joining up with a man as weak-willed and holier-than-thou as Captain Flint.”

As far as Billy knew, Flint never even had a conversation with Ned Low, because if they had spoke Ned would never think to call him “weak-willed.” The other accusation, Billy could admit held some truth. Flint made it a point to not interact with other outlaws if he could help it. The Fancy Gang was one of the more serious crews to frequent Nassau, true, but if they offered Flint nothing he could use he had nothing to do with them. Billy knew Flint better than most, and even he thought the man kept himself a step away from everyone else.

“Singleton’s not our man anymore,” said Billy, seeing no reason not to tell him. It’s not like it wouldn’t be all over town soon. “The only man Singleton belongs to now is Jesus fucking Christ. He’s dead.”

“Huh.” Ned seemed to think this over for a moment. Then he shrugged. “Guess we’ll just skip over him and go right to you.”

“Why?” Honestly, Billy was tired. The few hours of rest they had last night was not enough to deal with these needlessly overt displays of masculinity. “His actions had nothing to do with us. What would be the point?”

“If you think I need a reason to want to kill you, Mr. Manderley, you haven’t been paying attention.”

“To you?” Billy smiled, but not nicely. “Guess I haven’t.”

Vane snorted. Ned’s blank face twitched into something close to rage, if Billy thought him capable of real emotion.

“Singleton promised my men riches if he joined them,” Ned said. “That might be a reason.”

For fuck’s sake. Fucking Singleton. Not for the first time in his life, Billy wished men had the capability to die twice.

“You’ll have to speak to the man who killed him.” Billy rested his hands lightly on the guns in his holster. “But a lie like that seems to me the kind of lie to get a bullet between your eyes. Doesn’t it?”

They all stared at each other. Billy’s hands rested a little firmer on his pistols but he left them holstered. Besides Ned and Meeks, there were four other men, all armed to a degree, but Billy equaled two of them put together in size, and Vane matched them all in fervor. Flint would be pissed to all Hell if they wound up dead, but Billy honestly didn’t give a shit.

Then Meeks put his hand on Ned’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to be applying any pressure on his arm, but he quietly said, “Come on, Ned. Not in Nassau. You heard what Scott said. He won’t let you out again as easily.”

Ned thought about this for a moment, then easily holstered his guns. Everyone did the same slowly, but Billy didn’t relax any. He knew the men in front of him were just as dangerous without anything in their hands, just as he and Vane were.

So there was also little surprise when Ned Low reared back and struck Vane in the face. Vane was right there to meet him, taking him down at the waist. Billy watched them roll around on the ground for a second before two of Ned’s men tried to take him down.

A fist got him in the gut, and it hurt, sure, but Billy was able to grab the man by his silk waistcoat and hurled him across the alley, just as another guy leapt on his back and tried to choke him with a forearm.

Billy knew it was unsportsmanlike, but he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Seriously? _Seriously_. He grabbed the guy on his back by the head and flipped him over his shoulder. _Fucking_ Singleton. He couldn’t believe he’d actually allowed himself to think Flint was leaving him the easier job.

Someone got a lucky punch across his cheek, and for a second he saw stars. Then he ducked under another fist and gave one in return. He heard a nose break under his knuckles, and he didn’t consider himself the type to revel in violence the way Flint, Anne, and Vane did, but that sound was his _favorite_. He could see Meeks and the man Vane had beaten earlier keep watch at the mouth of the alley. He could not see Vane.

A shot rang out in the cramped space, the familiar smell of gunpowder filling the air. Everyone froze and Billy’s immediate thought was of Vane’s well-being. He didn’t feel shot himself. He had a hand around someone’s throat and another man on his back again and he did not see Vane.

He looked over his shoulder as Eleanor Guthrie cracked open her rifle and began to reload. She stood in the backdoor of her saloon, and she looked pissed.

“This is you fucking handling it, is it?” Eleanor asked Billy.

Billy shrugged. It kind of was. He dropped the man he was choking to the floor and shook the other off his back. He turned around to see Vane straddling Ned, which made him blink. They both had their knives out, though, and they were no longer moving and applying pressure to their blades, but neither removed them from the other’s person. Vane looked like he’d been trying to remove Ned Low’s head. Ned’s knife was slicing into his forearm, but had only succeeding in tearing his jacket.

“Charles?” said Eleanor, stepping fully into the alley. Her gun was still trained outward. “If you don’t mind?”

Vane didn’t look at her, but between one second and the next he was standing beside Billy. His lip was still bleeding and now he had a cut under his eye, but that seemed to be all the damage, apart from the jacket.

“Must be nice,” said Ned, picking himself off the floor, “having a loyal Injun at your beck and call. I suppose you must pay him in hooch and cunt, yes?”

Vane started forward, but Billy grabbed him by the elbow, and anyway Eleanor had already fired a warning shot over Ned. Buck sprayed the wall of the grocery store next door, and Billy hoped to God on the other side was only produce. Ned was showered with sawdust and his one good eye went wide.

“Do you know what the Sheriff would do to me if I were to put you down right now, like a sick dog?” She had already begun to reload again.

Ned Low wiped dust and blood from his forehead, sniffed, and said nothing. He still held his knife.

“Absolutely nothing.” Eleanor leveled the gun again, this time taking aim directly as his heart. “You told Scott you were leaving Nassau. Don’t break your promises, Ned. Girls hate it when you break promises.”

Ned looked at his men. None of them seemed quite prepared to die for him today. Silently, he straightened his waistcoat, picked up his bowler hat, gave them each one long last look, and then the Fancy Gang filed out of the alley.

After a moment, Billy let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Jesus fucking Christ. Why isn’t he our main suspect?”

Eleanor rested her gun on one arm and pulled a paper out of her pocket. “He was in the drunk tank all last night. Scott picked him up from here when he was starting fights, probably due to whatever the fuck happened with Singleton, but Singleton had been seen alive after the Sheriff had locked him up for the night.”

“What about one of the others?”

Eleanor shook her head. “The rest of the Fancy Gang had slunk off to Max’s for the remainder of their evening, and Max confirmed it. And anyway, Ned isn’t the type to pass off the dirty work to someone else. Because he’s a fucking lunatic.”

Eleanor and Vane were specifically not looking at each other. Vane was inspecting the rip in his sleeve. Billy looked down at the list. At least he recognized most of the names.

“Anyone else particularly pissed about Singleton’s offer?” Billy asked. “Or did anyone seem particularly interested?”

“That, I cannot tell you. You’ll have to ask them yourself. _Without_ fists, this time. Use your fucking words.” The _for once_ went, ironically, unsaid.

Vane twitched slightly and made eye contact with Billy. He seemed to be trying to communicate something to Billy, which Billy thought he got. Vane’s eyes swept over him once, checking for injuries, before leaving the same way Ned Low did.

“You heard Flint!” Billy called after him. “Something productive!”

Vane half turned as he walked and gave Billy the finger.

Once he’d disappeared (fortunately, going the opposite way the Fancy Gang went out the alley), Eleanor sighed heavily.

“You know,” she said, apparently having decided Billy was as good a confidant as any about this, “I always got the impression that he was embarrassed for falling in love with me.”

Billy was the last person anyone should turn to as an authority on love. But Vane never struck him as a person who felt that much shame. It seemed to Billy that Vane took responsibility for every single action he ever took. It was one of the few traits Billy admired. He wasn’t about to argue with her though, so he said nothing.

That didn’t seem to make her any happier, however. “No wonder you two get along so fucking well.”

Billy scratched the back of his head. He hadn’t realized they did. He wished he had something to say to that to avoid angering her more, but he really couldn’t think of anything.

Eleanor sighed. “Whatever the fuck this is all about,” she said, heading back inside her saloon, “I hope to God it’s fucking worth it.”

For lack of anything else to do, Billy followed her. He looked down at his long list of suspects, unsure where to even start. Anne was right, they _weren’t_ Pinkertons. His stomach hurt.

“Fucking Singleton,” he muttered to himself. “You couldn’t have just waited a few more hours to die?”

* * *

Flint stared down at the corpse. Singleton’s skin looked waxy and gray, his eyes were closed, and the hole in his forehead was black and twisted, but Flint still had to fight the urge to put his hands around his throat and strangle him.

Instead he lit another cigarette. He shook out a match and, holding the cigarette between his lips, began patting down Singleton’s body.

“I know you don’t think much of my position as a law enforcer,” said Sheriff Scott behind him, “but I actually did think to do that.”

Flint rolled Singleton to one side with some effort to feel his back pockets. “Peace of mind, Sheriff,” he muttered. “Peace of mind.”

He continue to handle Singleton until the light taps started to turn more aggressive, and he made himself take a step back. In life, Singleton had been so imposing, with all his scars and muscles and endless anger. Now, taking in the sight of his bare feet, the toes gnarled and blue, he already looked a skeleton to Flint.

“Are you ready to actually discuss what’s going on now?” Scott asked. “Or would you like to continue abusing the dead?”

Flint inhaled deeply. The cold burn of the smoke lingering in his lungs left him light-headed. He should have eaten something. “Lead the way,” he said. He didn’t look at Singleton’s body again.

They left the storage room that housed Singleton’s body, normally reserved for chains and guns. Even if Singleton was a traitorous son of a bitch, Flint thought he would have appreciated the final resting place. Scott’s office sat adjacent in the back of the building. The front of the room held the only three jail cells in Nassau. Although he knew Scott wouldn’t lock him up, being this close to the iron doors made him feel on edge.

“So he stole from you,” Scott said, sitting behind his desk. It was spartan, like the rest of his office. A pile of wanted notices and arrest warrants from other places come down the wire, handwritten scrawls from neighbors complaining about other neighbors, death threats from nearby counties disapproving of his title. The people in Nassau were accommodating folk. When it was lawless it abided those rules, and now that it sat lawful they changed with the wind. They did as Eleanor Guthrie told them to do, which was to accept Scott in his position, but her reach only extended so far.

Scott and Eleanor were pretty unified. His role as law enforcement was limited, not because of the color of his skin but due to Eleanor’s own less than legal activities. He handled the drunks, the land disputes, the petty thefts -- anything within the city limits. The Walrus Gang, and any other gangs Eleanor deemed acceptable to do business with, were out of his jurisdiction. As far as he was concerned, Nassau was the beginning and end of his line of duty. For now.

Unlike the rest of them, though, Sheriff Scott was never a criminal. He saw the right way to do things, and the right way for Nassau was unquestionably a railway station, not the possibility of stolen money in a deep hole in Colorado.

So Flint didn’t tell Eleanor, but to Scott he said, “He took Vasquez’s map.”

“ _Fuck._ ” Scott actually looked somewhat impressed. “How the hell did you come by that?”

Just because Sheriff Scott wouldn’t arrest them, didn’t mean Flint was just going to admit to any criminal misdeeds. “I stumbled upon it by luck in Kansas City.”

Scott snorted. “Does Eleanor know about this?”

“No.”

“ _Good_. Make sure it stays that way.” Because while Scott wouldn’t be tempted by a legendary $200,000, Eleanor definitely would be.

After a moment, Scott said, “And you’re sure of it’s legitimacy?”

“I have no reason to question it.”

“No,” said Scott. “Only your life, and the lives of your men.”

“No one knows we had it except us, you, and Singleton. And possibly whoever killed him, although they may not even realize what they have. This is still completely in hand--”

“Hornigold was in town yesterday.”

Flint choked on smoke. "What the _fuck_ , Scott?"

Without letting him catch his breath, Scott added, "And he was seen speaking with Singleton shortly after he arrived yesterday afternoon."

Flint threw his cigarette to the ground and stood up. He felt like he was buried to the neck in an ant hill. His skin was crawling. He itched to run.

It's not that he was afraid of Hornigold and the rest of his Pinkerton team, sworn to hunt them down for the last year ever since the Walrus Gang had robbed Hornigold's own bank. While Hornigold was inside making a deposit. Ever since then he had made it his personal duty to bring them to justice. He'd even gotten close a couple times, which Flint knew only furthered his ire. He was more of a nuisance, really, but goddamn it, they're _so close_ to everything they ever wanted.

"Hornigold," said Flint as he paced Scott's office, "wasn't on Eleanor's fucking list."

"She doesn't know," Scott said simply. "I know you all see me as her puppet, but it isn't actually customary for a sheriff to inform the local saloon owner when the Pinkerton Detective Agency was in town."

"Jesus fucking Christ." Flint's shoulder hurt. His throat ached. There was too much to consider and so his mind felt like it was crawling with ants, too. "How do you know they weren't the ones to kill Singleton?"

"And leave without his bounty? That's so unlikely I'd call it an impossibility."

He took his hat off and dropped it on Scott’s desk, overly warm. "Tell me exactly what happened."

Scott sighed, leaning back in his chair beneath the window. Sunlight caught on the tin badge pinned to his chest, flashing Flint in the eye until he blinked away.

"The Pinkertons rode into town yesterday morning." Scott reached for a cup on his desk. "Hornigold came in to see me when he arrived. Asked if we'd had any suspicious characters in town recently. Any outlaws looking to trouble the Kansas Pacific deal. He didn't mention you by name, but when I told him Ned Low and his lot were here he was uninterested."

Flint perked up. "Low's here? He's hated my crew for awhile."

Scott took a long sip of coffee before shaking his head. "He was in here all last night, drunk. A mild stabbing situation."

"And you let him out already?"

"Featherstone insists he merely tripped on New Low's knife. Twice."

Flint closed his eyes. He was _so close_ to being done with this. "So Hornigold left here?"

"A little while later I saw him, that Dusfresne, and Singleton chatting by the stables. I was starting to approach them when Singleton saw me and walked away, looking powerfully angry. I was expecting the Pinkertons to give chase but they were too busy conversing too low for me to hear. Then they said they were riding out, saddled up and left. Around then Singleton headed to the saloon, trying to round up a new crew."

They had talked. Flint tried to think. Then Hornigold had left, and Singleton became noticeably desperate. Was he looking for a crew to help dig up the safe? Was he looking for protection? Obviously some sort of trap was being set, but was Singleton the bait or Vasquez's money?

"I think you're beginning to understand," Scott said, "why I'm urging you to forget this. You're not going to find your El Dorado at the end of that map, Flint. You're only going to find yourself in front of a firing squad."

That made Flint huff. "Don't you mean on the end of a noose?"

"We all know your legend, Captain. I don't think Hornigold would leave it to chance."

Flint let the nickname slide. "I can't believe you're encouraging me to continue the career I'm in now that neither of us choose to acknowledge in the other's presence." He scratched his chin. He wished he hadn't thrown away his cigarette. "What would you have us do?"

"This money is even a bigger legend than you," said Scott. "What is it you think you could accomplish with it, if the damn thing exists?"

Flint had in his mind a vision of his future, and it had evolved over the years. During the war, running through the mud and viscera of his fallen brothers, he imagined himself on a ranch somewhere near a town like Nassau, living a peaceful existence with a herd of cattle and few neighbors. After all the events of Glen Rock, he pictured himself drifting in a rowboat out to sea, the waves gently rocking him into oblivion, until he burnt up to dust and he disappeared into the mist.

Now, over a decade into this thing he created, with Miranda cold in the ground and the blood they’d shed threatening to choke him -- his future was a cave, high in a mountaintop. He saw himself as a hermit out of the Middle Ages, clad in just a long shirt, a dirty beard dragging through the earth. He would eat berries and sleep on top of a rock in the sun like a lizard, crawl beneath it at night when it cooled. He'd let birds and insects live in his hair and he'd let moss grow on his back. He wanted to feed himself to a forest.

"This is a way to escape," Flint said. "A way to finally rest. Can't you see that?"

It was the wrong thing to say. Scott never looked particularly friendly towards him but now he shuttered up completely. "No," he said coldly. "I'm just a black fucking sheriff in fucking America, holding an extremely tenuous position granted to me by a white woman who doesn't even have the power to fucking _vote_ for me herself. I don't get the luxury of _finally resting_ unless I'm ready to die, and to be frank with you I’m not particularly keen to do that. Resting is just another way of giving up, and you don’t need money to do that."

Flint understood, but he didn't see it as giving up. He saw it as finishing what someone else started eleven years ago. He wanted to apologize to Scott, or maybe try to explain, but he knew it wouldn't be accepted or appreciated, so he said nothing. He looked out the entryway at the three vacant jail cells. He tried not to notice how dark and cold they looked, like caves.

Scott put his coffee down and walked over to him. He leaned on the other side of the door frame, and he no longer looked as ornery as he had a moment ago.

"There are a whole people out there who can tell you that escaping never feels like rest," Scott said. "And freedom is rarely, if ever, free."

"I know that," said Flint quietly. "I do."

He felt Scott looking at him hard. He felt restless, empty, skinned - an old tree shaved down and hollowed to be used for something pointless or degrading, like an umbrella stand or an outhouse.

“What are you going to do now?” Scott asked.

Flint let out a long sigh, rubbing his face hard. “I’m going to see what the rest of my crew has round up,” he said. He walked back to the desk and picked up his hat. The worn black leather against his dry hands made him feel steadier than he had a moment ago. It wasn’t until he saw all the pieces on the board could he make his next play.  “And then I guess we’ll go from there.”

“Just make sure wherever it is you go,” Scott said, coming around to sit back in his chair, “it doesn’t end with Nassau burned in your wake.”

“That won’t happen unless I find out you or Eleanor had something to do with this.” He put the hat on and smiled. “That won’t happen, will it?”

Scott didn’t look pleased. “Just hurry up and get the fuck out of my town,” he said.

Flint started to move but then he stopped, looked back at the closed door where Singleton lay. “You should take the kill,” he said suddenly. “Collect the bounty. I think it was about $1,000. Keep the money, or put it towards the town, I don’t know. Would look good for when Kansas Pacific comes around.”

“Thanks for the advice,” said Scott. He held up a piece of paper. “But I’ve actually been working on that telegram to send off since last night.”

Flint titled his head in acknowledgement. On his way passed the cells he called back, “Oh, and if you taking the credit and the money draws the real killer to your doorstep, you be sure to let me know.”

He was almost out the door when he heard Scott mutter, “ _Motherfucker._ ”

Flint smiled to himself. He walked back to the saloon to see if Billy had any news. He finally felt like some breakfast.

* * *

_April 27, 1854_

 

_She boarded the train the way all the other children did - in one massive, uncoordinated wave. Everyone was pushing and shoving from all sides, desperate to get on. No one knew exactly what was going on or where they would end up or why, but everyone knew the importance of getting a good seat: all to themselves, on something like a cushion instead of the floor, not next to someone with lice._

_She didn’t understand what was happening. No one had been able to explain it to her. One moment she was in her village, kissing her neighbors and her friends and her Rabbi goodbye, heading with her mother to meet her father already living in_ Newyorsity _. The next moment she was in the hold of a huge, creaking ship gripping her mother’s clammy pale hand as she whispered all about the magic of_ Newyorsity _even as she slipped off forever into the night. And in a blink she was being held back, held down by the other passengers as she screamed, as she kicked, as they threw her mother’s wrapped body over the side. And then only moments later she was standing on a dock, and her father was not._

 _It had only been a week she had lived in the strange large building that was full of other mean, dirty children but not full of food, before she was rallied into a carriage and sent to a train station, to be sent -- who knows where. All she could gather was they were leaving_ Newyorsity _, and she was fine with that._

_Now, she squeezed her way through the aisle of the train, listening to the incomprehensible talk around her. She wanted to cry but didn’t. She told herself, after watching her mother’s body slip beneath the sea, that she wouldn’t do that kind of thing anymore._

_“Hey, I like your bonnet.”_

_She didn’t know why she turned to the voice but she did. She saw a short, messy boy smiling at her, sitting near the window on a long bench. He had no front teeth, and his hair was a wild bird’s nest. He was also alone._

_“Wow, and look at your hair,” said the boy, awed. “I ain’t never seen hair that red before.”_

_She said nothing. Someone bumped into her from behind, pushing her closer._

_He blinked at her curiously. “You don’t speak English, huh?” He guessed. Then he brightened. “Hey, I could teach you! I’m really good at it!”_

_He gestured to her to come closer with one hand, the other digging into a ratty knapsack. She went closer, sat down gently beside him._

_He looked at her with a sly smile. “I’ve got a_ book _,” he whispered conspiratorially. He dropped it in her lap._

_She didn’t understand the words, but the book had pictures and so she knew the story. It was Noah, building his ark and gathering his animals and herding them onto his ship as big storm clouds drew overhead. She didn’t like looking at the drawing of the ark, so she covered it with one hand. She liked the animal drawings, though._

_The boy was still talking._

_“This is my favorite story,” he said. “Look at all the animals! They all got someone, see? They all got a partner, to be with during the flood, so that’s all right. Which one do you like best?” He trailed his hand over the long line of animals marching up a ramp into the ship she still covered with her palm._

_She let her fingers follow his, before stopping on the two lions. They were at the front of the line and they looked serious, fierce, important._

_“Those are my favorite too!” The boy crowed, then looked around sheepishly as people turned to stare. “You kinda look like a lion, anyone ever tell you that? What about me, do I look like a lion?”_

_He puffed out his chest and made a stern face. She smiled at him, and the boy smiled brightly back._

_“Me and you can be lions,” he decided. “Hey, where are you from, anyway?”_

_She blinked at him. She could tell he’d asked her a question._

_The boy frowned. “Where. You. From. You.” He pointed hard at her._

_She put a hand on her chest. “Anna,” she said slowly._

_The boy sighed, but then smiled again. She decided she liked his smile. “My name’s Jack,” he said._

_Jack held out his hand, and Anna took it._

 

________

 

_September 6, 1875_

 

“Fuck you, Jack,” Anne said, spitting on the ground.

Jack pushed his hat back and pouted. He hadn’t bothered to shave in days and his beard was coming in oddly on the sides. It made her want to take a knife to him more than usual. “I was only thinking you might wish to switch assignments,” he said. “I just thought you would like to see the circus, I know how much you love frivolities.”

Anne scowled at him, although most of it was hidden behind her hat. She knew he saw it anyway. “Yeah, I know what you fucking thought,” she said poisonously.

They were standing in the shadow of the brothel. He looked up at the wooden front. They never discussed the brothel when they were in Nassau or when they were elsewhere either. They both knew Jack never frequented it, but they both knew Anne had, once or twice. She knew everything there was to know about Calico Jack, but watching his face as he looked at the building front, both of them knowing who exactly sat inside -- she still had no idea what he thought about it.

He sighed, still not looking at her. “You know how vital the recovery of this map is for us,” he said quietly. “It’s -- potential. A real future. If Singleton fucked that up for us I may have to kill myself just so I can find him in Hell and murder him a second time.”

Anne rolled her eyes but said nothing. Whenever Jack spoke about the future it caused an uncomfortable turn in her stomach, like seasickness -- something she hadn’t felt in twenty years. Around the same time she was discovering that kind of nausea was when she learned the pointlessness of hoping for a better future.

“Fine,” Jack said with another sigh. “I’ll go to the damn show.” He turned to her again. He quirked his lips briefly, and his eyes were as kind as they always were. He quickly brushed two fingers against her cheek, knowing to move them fast before she could jerk back.

He headed back down the street. The tents of the medicine show piled up about a mile in the distance. “Don’t get distracted now,” Jack said without turning around.

“Don’t get fucking drunk,” she called out after him. He didn’t react but she knew he heard.

Entering the brothel, she thought maybe she should have taken Jack up on his offer to switch. It was just natural to her to disagree with most things he came up with. When it was the two of them against someone else’s idea, they were always united, but when Jack started spewing his bullshit to her, she called it like it was.

But she felt too on edge for this. She hadn’t slept enough. Flint had called them out from that last bank once he’d found the map, before she got to hit anyone, and the aborted violence made her feel hopped up and itching to hurt, like being interrupted in the middle of fucking. She wasn’t in the right mind to deal with this.

The whores of Max’s were lounging around the ballroom (a pun if there ever was one, and puns were one of the first things Jack had taught her) in various states of undress, and all over the place - at the tables, the stairs, the floor. They were eating, doing each other’s hair, applying makeup with hand mirrors, joking around with each other. Without any men to ruin the picture, they looked like a family.

They all stopped when they saw Anne.

“You all here, then?” Anne said into the silence.

No one responded.

“I asked you all a fucking question,” Anne said, stepping further into the room. Her hat hung low, and her hair covered part of her face, but she still could see everyone in the room. “You all here? Any other girls upstairs? Wanna get this over with quick.” She could meet Jack at the medicine show, hopefully keep him away from a bottle and hopefully without seeing anyone else.

They stayed quiet until Anne rested her hands on her guns. Then one of the women, her blonde hair half curled, said, “This is all of us girls. But our madam--”

“Only want to talk to you,” Anne cut her off. They followed her movements around the floor like she was a snake about to strike. “I want to know which of you cunts had Singleton last night, and I want to know now.”

No one responded, but she caught a few eyes darting quickly to a brunette sitting on the stairs. Her corset was only half tied and the only makeup she had on was a dark red lipstick. She also noticed a few of the girls look at her and rolled her eyes.

“I’m not supposed to say anything,” said the whore.

Anne approached her swiftly, gun already in hand. She liked the way the whore’s face changed when she stuck the barrel under her pale chin.

“I ain’t much of a talker,” Anne said. “But I think you get my fucking point.”

The whore swallowed heavily, but before she could say anything a door on the second landing creaked open. Soft footsteps approached the top of the stairs. Anne didn’t look.

“Idelle,” said the lilting voice above her. “Go get some lunch. I will answer any questions Miss Anne Bonny has for us.”

“So you fucked Singleton last night too?” Anne snarled, turning upwards, unable to help herself.

Max smiled down at her. White afternoon light shone down a window in the roof, dust still dancing around her from her approach. Her hair was pinned up neatly, her face plainly painted, her clothes modest -- except for the deep red shade of the silk, and a single curl twisting down beside one ear.

Every time Anne saw her, she felt like Lot’s wife. Curiosity at what Max was -- was to _her_ \-- always made her look, and she always became a pillar of salt from it: fragile, pale, soon to disappear in a gust of wind.

Anne’s grip on her gun tightened.

“Come, now,” said Max softly. “We have much to catch up on.”

Idelle slipped away as Anne watched Max retreat to her office. She heard Jack’s voice  in her ear _don’t get distracted now_ as she slowly holstered her pistol and ascended the stairs.

Max’s office was all windows and sheer curtains. The french doors leading to her bed were wide open, and Anne saw the sheets were unmade. Resting against her desk was a painting. She looked at it for a long moment, and even tilted her head, but all she saw was a blur of purple and orange.

“What the fuck is this supposed to be?” she couldn’t help but ask.

Max ran her fingers along the painting’s frame, smiling. “A customer paid with it. He had just come back from exploring the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” She looked slyly at Anne. “ _One_ of the most beautiful, I mean.”

 _Don’t get distracted now_.

“Cut the bullshit,” Anne said. “I’m only here about Singleton.”

“But it’s been almost four months since we last saw one another,” said Max. “I’ve been saving up all my bullshit for you.”

“I’m going to go downstairs and start removing that whore’s fingers one bullet at a time,” said Anne, “unless you fucking tell me what I want to know.”

“Of course,” Max said with a sigh, sitting down behind her desk. She let out a small cough, and Anne tensed, waiting for it to get bigger, but she seemed to catch herself. Max had moved from Louisiana a few years back on doctor’s orders, wanting her to get away from the wetness, but Anne didn’t think the dry season and all this dust did her many favors.

“You might as well sit,” Max said after taking a sip of water. “Your man is still going to be dead once I get to the end of this account.”

Anne kept herself stiff, standing. If she sat, she’d have a clear view of Max’s bed. That, she knew, would almost certainly be a distraction.

Max considered her. Anne knew she was taking in her tired, drawn face, her mud-streaked clothes, her dirty hands. Her fingers twitched with the old yet strong desire to clean them. Suddenly she felt every bit of grit on her like the weight of a thousand stones.

But then Max said, musing, “Unless there is another reason you wish to find Singleton’s killer. A reason that has nothing to do with revenge.”

“Fuck Singleton,” Anne spat, and then she wanted to kick herself.

Max smiled, looking down at her desk. “So he had something. Or several somethings. Something, I assume, which did not belong to him.”

Anne grit her teeth and said nothing.

When it became clear that Anne wasn’t going to slip up again, Max leaned forward at her desk. Anne couldn’t look at her without also seeing the Grand Canyon. “Fine. Singleton came in here last night, drunk to high Hell, having been kicked out of Guthrie’s for the evening for causing too many altercations. He went straight to Idelle, but was too drunk to do anything other than drink more. I had her tell me what he said, but she insists he told her nothing specific. He said he had more money than Grant and could buy her the world if she wanted. She said he was afraid, and he kept saying all he needed was one man. She said she didn’t think he acted like he knew he was going to die, but she thought that when the bullet hit him between the eyes, it wouldn’t have surprised him any.”

Anne nodded. “And what did she say to him?”

“She suggested he head to the medicine show on the edge of town,” said Max. “That that was where men go to look for their miracle cures.”

So he went to the saloon, then here, then the show. Without knowing what the others have found, there’s no way to know what happened for certain, but she felt close to something. She hoped to God Jack wasn’t getting drunk right now.

Anne was about to leave when Max said, “Tell me. If he hadn’t of stolen from you, or if you find whatever it is he took, were you ever planning on coming back here?”

Anne looked down, hiding her face. Her eyes caught that painting again. Now that she knew what it was, she could kind of see what it looked like.

Jack’s plan for the money was a simple one. As soon as they had their collective share, they would strike it out away from the rest of the Walrus Gang and never pick up another gun again. Stealing had only ever been a means to an end, he said, and had said ever since the day they were left on their own -- Jack causing a ruckus on that train somewhere in Ohio, where they’d meant to leave him without Anne to go work on a farm somewhere, Jack hollering and kicking so no one would see Anne leaping off the other side of the train, the two of them never making it to that farm, Jack accidentally leaving his only book behind in his seat but he got Anne instead and he insisted that was a better trade, even though he looked heartbroken.

Jack wanted a life of prosperity for them. He wanted to see Anne sleeping on a beach in the sun. He wanted to see her sleeping on a bed of goose feathers and silk in a plantation. He wanted to see her sleeping easily.

Anne knew all this. But she didn’t know who she was without a gun in her hand, without someone to hurt, to frighten, to fight.

“No,” said Anne quietly. “We’d never of come back here.”

She pretended not to see the wetness in Max’s eyes. “Where were you two planning to go?”

Anne shrugged. “Jack’s always talking about Mexico.” The only way Anne had been able to stay upright on their long ride after Singleton was the thought about Mexico. She’d seen it in a picture once. It looked nice. But her idea of it filled her with an unknown dread.

“Mexico,” said Max wistfully. She got up and walked to one of her large bay windows, which overlooked no bay. Just brown dust and flat buildings. “I have heard the waters in Mexico are bluer than the sky. Bluer, perhaps, than even your eyes.” She gave Anne a small smile. “I miss the water. There’s nothing like here it in fucking Kansas. Ponds, lakes -- small, dark, earthy things, ugly, with that horrible nothingness for taste. I miss the salt on my tongue.”

Anne started, turned to face her fully. Max was looking outside again and shone in the sunlight, like she always did. The nape of her neck, where it met the delicate line of her hair, looked closer to the sloped edges of the Grand Canyon than any fucking painting could.

Anne approached her, and when Max turned to her she cupped the back of that neck and drew her in for a kiss. Max opened her mouth immediately, and Anne caught her bottom lip between her teeth. She brought her other hand to Max’s breast. Max didn’t dress like a whore anymore but Anne could feel the faint impression of lace from her undergarments beneath the fabric of her gown. Anne knew Max liked her fancy brassieres and the like, saw them as things she kept for herself only and the few she deemed worthy enough to know of their existence. She rubbed her thumb in pressing circles until she felt Max’s nipple harden, and Max’s shivered into her mouth.

Max drew back with a sigh, her cheeks pink and soft. Her hands had become tangled in Anne’s long hair. “Don’t you have somewhere to be right now?”

“Yeah,” said Anne. She dropped her hand from Max’s neck to her waist and began walking her back to the bedroom. “I do.”

Anne loved Jack. Jack had seen everything there was to see with Anne -- had seen her at her darkest, her most evil, her most vulnerable -- and still looked at her with unrestrained and unparalleled awe, and sometimes she needed that to keep going. But Max only ever saw who she was in each singular moment. Anne lost her history with Max and when Anne was with her the only thing she ever felt was wanted, and sometimes Anne needed that too.

It was Anne leading them to the bedroom, but as always it was Max laying her down onto the bed.

It was a few hours later when Anne emerged from the brothel, late in the afternoon, and she was trying to come up with a convincing argument to tell the Walrus Gang for why she had been gone so long and how she absolutely had not been distracted and no, she didn’t know where the fucking map was.

But then she rounded a corner onto the main street, and saw Jack, slumped on the wooden stairs leading to the post office. Vane stood beside him, arms folded. He looked fucking livid, and when he saw Anne approach he somehow looked madder.

Anne was a few feet from Jack when she smelled the overwhelming liquor smell.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” she said.

He looked up at her blearily, finally noticing her arrival. “Hello, dear,” he said weakly. His hat was gone, as was his left boot and his handkerchief. His nose was bright red which Anne guessed was from the hooch, but then she saw the drip of blood out one nostril and the fresh split of Vane’s knuckle and guessed otherwise.

“For fuck's sake, Jack. What the fuck happened?”

“Well,” said Jack. He tried to stand up once but failed and then gave up completely. “Well. I’ve made a mistake, certainly, but rest assured, darling, it was all for the sake of our great success. I swear to God almighty himself, when you look at it from a very specific way, I’ve done an excellent job here today.”

When he finally told her, Anne punched him in the nose too. 

* * *

Flint had spent the better part of the day sitting in the saloon, talking with men he despised. He had just met most of them for the first time and thought he would despise them before actually speaking to them, and was happy to discover his assessment of them was completely right. What a bunch of fucking morons.

This was another argument he should have made to Scott about getting out of this life. All his assumed associates were a bunch of jackasses. He wished he had time for a bath.

They’d learned nothing new from the horde of men Singleton had accosted the day previous. Most of them were able to assert the man had left just before the sun had set, drunk as a skunk and verbally assaulting every man who refused him, which was all of them. Or so they claimed. Flint thought some of them might have been interested in whatever it was Singleton had offered them, but while they had been still mulling it over, Singleton had turned up dead and that pretty much made up their minds for them.

A few people claimed to see Singleton heading to the brothel after leaving the saloon, so Flint hoped Anne got lucky there.

He and Billy had sat in an almost companionable silence at the saloon. He appreciated the fact that, barring Jack, none of his crew were big conversationalists. Flint got to eat. He felt an almost calm about the whole thing that he mostly attributed to sleep deprivation and a form of hysteria. If the others hadn’t turned up anything, their next moves were limited, and in a way that was soothing.

It was in fate’s hands whether or not Flint decided to burn Nassau to the ground. Scott and Eleanor were right in fearing that was always a _possibility,_  however slight.

So it was with something of an easy comfort did they finally leave the saloon late in the afternoon. Most of it was relief to get away from his contemporaries, so called cowboys and outlaws who couldn’t tell their peckers from the wrong end of a pistol barrel. But he’d eaten a real meal, and Billy didn’t seem to want to pressure him about what happened next, so he allowed himself to feel cautiously optimistic.

Until they’d walked only a few minutes and came up on Jack, Anne, and Vane -- and the optimism went the way it always did, vanishing without a trace.

“What the fuck is going on?” He tried to keep his voice low and calm.

Jack looked up at him like a beaten dog. He had Vane’s handkerchief held under his nose, but Vane wasn’t looking at any of them. Anne seemed like she was seconds away from strangling Jack, and Jack smelled like he’d taken a bath in rye.

“I fucking _told you_ \--” Flint started.

“I _know_ , please --”

“Just tell us what the fuck is going on,” said Billy.

“Jack lost all our fucking money,” said Anne.

“Please, darling, let me tell it. You won’t say it right.”

Flint, deep down in the very center of him, was actually a good person. Which is why he didn’t punch Jack in the nose when it already looked broken. He punched him in the eye instead.

“Ow, _fuck!_ ”

They’d only made about $3,000 from the bank in Kansas City before they’d found the map and hightailed it out of there, and then the next morning they’d awoken to find Singleton and the map gone. In the haste of success and then rage at the loss, the money Jack and Vane had liberated from the Kansas City safe had stayed in Jack’s purse, as all other thoughts had been elsewhere.

If it was gone, then the last week would literally all be for nothing. He couldn’t believe Anne hadn’t strangled him yet but now she was gonna have to wait in fucking line.

“Please!” said Jack, scrambling up the steps away from them. His voice was hoarse; maybe Anne had choked him a little. “Let me explain!”

“Fucking _explain_ then,” said Flint, approaching. No one protested, not even Billy, which was a testament to how richly deserving Jack was to die.

“I went to Mr. Gates’s Authentic Wild West and Medicine Show,” Jack said quickly, hands held out in front of him, bloody handkerchief waving in surrender, “and I spoke with the aforementioned Mr. Gates, who offered nothing substantial. Exactly, in fact, what he told Sheriff Scott, which was that an angry, drunk Singleton stormed into the tents at the very end of the last show the previous evening, said nothing to no one, and then left.”

“So your last act on this Earth resulted in a resounding nothing,” said Flint. He reached for one of his pistols. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”

“Wait! As we were talking a man walked by. One of the show hands, name of Logan. Said he saw our Mr. Singleton heading into the tent of the show’s sharpshooter. When Mr. Gates asked him why he didn’t tell the Sheriff this information, Logan said no one asked him.”

Flint blinked. “A sharpshooter?”

Jack nodded furiously. “So I went to see the sharpshooter. An obnoxious little shit, real piece of work. Kept insisting he didn’t know anything about it, had never seen Singleton before, but I could tell he was lying. And when I saw the pack of cards in his room, I offered him a little wager. If I won he told me the truth, but since I had no truth to give to him, I could only offer him cash.”

“ _Cards?_ ” Billy said behind him. “But you cheat at cards!”

“Evidently, so does he.”

“So you learned _nothing_ then?”

Jack smiled. Blood had dripped down from his nose and stained his teeth. “When a sober man is winning against a drunk man, ego tends to prevail every time. He let things slip. I swear to you this, Flint, if I’m wrong you are free to cut me down where I stand -- this is the man who killed Singleton, and what’s more, this is the man who has our map. I am certain of it.”

Flint couldn’t actually kill Jack. Doing so would provoke Anne, despite her anger towards him at the moment, and if Flint killed her Vane would attack, and frankly he didn’t think Billy would stand for the murders of any of them. He thought Jack might have known that. He asked, through clenched teeth, “Who is he?”

Wordlessly, Jack reached into his jacket, pulled out a rolled piece of paper, and handed it to Flint.

It was a painted poster from the Wild West show. In the center stood a man with long, curly blonde hair he hoped was a wig, and a big sandy beard. Possibly it intended to make him look Herculean but only succeeded in making him look like a coiffed poodle. He stood backwards on a proud white steed, shooting two big guns into the air, and he wore a bright blue shirt, an eyepatch, red boots, and a wide, toothy, shit-eating grin.

“Who the _fuck,_ ” said Flint, “is Long Joe Silverado?”


	2. the journey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i'm goin' out west where the wind blows tall_

_September 6, 1875_

 

“Would you _please_ hurry up, Mr. Silverado?”

Silver turned his hand mirror to better see DeGroot standing behind him. They were on opposite sides of the tent, with about twenty feet between them, and DeGroot was next to a rail with six perfectly un-dented bean cans in a neat, evenly-spaced row. Silver smiled widely at DeGroot, who did not return it.

“I apologize, Mr. DeGroot,” Silver said loudly. He looked at himself in the mirror again, brushing down part of his long blonde hair. “I have a very pressing engagement tonight after the show, and I simply must look my best.”

The crowd tittered, and DeGroot sighed audibly. It wasn’t an act. Every day, he was genuinely tired of Silver’s bullshit.

DeGroot wasn’t even originally part of the show. He’d only been a stagehand up until the day he’d come into Silver’s arena ten minutes earlier than expected while Silver was still practicing his act, and had tried to clean up the area anyway. Silver had started shooting targets around him much to DeGroot’s displeasure. Gates had seen and had found DeGroot’s frustrated shrieks of terror hilarious, so he’d put it into the end of his act.

Silver made it a point to provide a _show_ with his show. None of that _And for my next trick!_ bullshit. He told a _story_. But this part of his story always felt rather clownish to him, and since DeGroot didn’t have a humorous bone in his body, Silver suspected that made him the clown.

“We’re new in town, Mr. Silverado. We don’t have friends and family here,” DeGroot said. “Who are you going to meet?”

“Why, a beautiful stranger, of course.” He adjusted the mirror so his face was now visible to the audience. If he’d had two eyes, this would have been the perfect time to wink at them, but instead he gave them a cheeky grin. “Someone tall, with a cunning wit, of course. A blonde, perhaps. Or a redhead. And a great ass--”

“Mr. Silverado!”

“--asset to their humble community, Mr. DeGroot. Why? What did you think I was going to say?”

The audience laughed, but the smile on Silver’s face was frozen and forced. It didn’t matter if he was performing on a tiny stage in Chicago or San Francisco, or in empty fields outside the backwater, one-horse towns of wherever the fuck, the audiences were always the same -- mealy, simple faces, dim, shadowed room, and the overwhelming scent combination of horse shit, grease paint, dust, and human shit. This crowd had already seen his show. With a town as small as Nassau, entertainment was limited, and as Mr. Gates’s Authentic Wild West and Medicine Show was only here for two days, everyone - from the drunks and whores to the priest and the farmers - was taking every opportunity to see something a little different.

Except it wasn’t fucking different anymore. It was the same goddamn show he’d put on for them last night, which was what he’d argued to Gates earlier today when he’d pleaded to let him leave this fucking town with his life intact. When his request had been denied, he would have tried to slip out unnoticed, but Gates wasn’t a stupid man, and had put him under heavy watch from Randall until his show started that afternoon. Randall wasn’t a big man or a young man, but he was a biter, so Silver had no choice but to shoot cans, smile like an idiot, and keep his fucking fingers crossed he’d make it out of Nassau alive.

He’d already pushed his luck from the moment his first show had ended the previous night. He’d pushed his luck so far it had already fallen into the dirt and was six feet deep by now. He still didn’t quite understand what the fuck had happened to him within the last twenty-four hours, but he knew he wished to contemplate the absurdity a hundred fucking miles from Nassau.

“You know the rules, Mr. Silverado.” DeGroot stood beside the first can in the line, blocking the next few with his body. “You have to use every bullet in your guns or else you won’t get paid. You’ve got six targets left and one loaded gun, so please hurry up so I can get some dinner.”

Fuck. Was that a shadow moving just beyond where the row of people sat watching? Probably. There were tons of people milling around. It was nothing. It was nobody.

It’d been a couple hours since that outlaw stumbled out of his small private camp. Silver had been in front of an audience for most of those hours. Likely the outlaw had a chance to sober up. Likely he had friends with him.

There were at least another few minutes of call-and-response with DeGroot, but fuck it. Gates will have to deal. DeGroot did not handle ad-libbing very well and anything off script was liable to make him riot, but fuck him too. That fact that Silver had stayed at all when his life and his potential fortune was on the line was in itself a goddamn miracle.

“Oh, fine,” said Silver, picking up a pistol off a nearby table. It wasn’t one of _his_ guns, the ones he wore on his person at all times. They were never used unless they needed to be used, and they never needed to be used in a goddamn circus.

He still held the mirror.

“Wait,” said DeGroot. “What--”

With his back to DeGroot, Silver lifted the mirror with one hand and held the gun upside down, pointing backwards over his shoulder. He shot with his right hand, which meant holding the mirror with left, angling it so he could see behind him with his only eye.

Silver took aim.

The crowd gasped in delight, applauding and cheering, as he hit the first can, inches from where DeGroot stood. And as DeGroot, shouting, stumbled backwards in front of the row of targets, Silver hit them one by one, missing the other man by inches. Usually Silver took his time between each shot, to allow proper time for audiences to marvel, but he had places to be, namely fucking anywhere else, and so he fired quickly, almost too quickly for DeGroot to back away from.

For the fifth can he aimed low, so the bullet hit it at an angle, knocking the final can off the wall with a bang and a clank. The audience went wild. They didn’t seem to be bothered by the missing jokes, the lost story. Only the gunfire and the potential for death kept their attention.

DeGroot needed a moment before remembering to say, panting, his face flushed with rage, “You still have one bullet--”

Silver silently pointed the mirror higher, aimed, and shot the hat clean off DeGroot’s head. This was part of the act -- DeGroot, in fact, only wore paper hats because of it, the cost had proved too high for real hats -- but Silver usually had a couple lines to give DeGroot a moment to prepare. This time he dropped right to the floor, and for a moment Silver thought he’d actually hit DeGroot before he remembered who he was, and knew that could never happen unless he wanted it to happen. Besides, the scream of a dying man and the scream of a scared man were two completely different sounds.

The audience went wild with laughter. Silver raised the mirror and the gun into the air and bowed as low as he could without his hat and hair threatening to fall off.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, thank you,” Silver said over the crowd. “My name is Long Joe Silverado, and it has been my pleasure to shoot for you.”

He dropped the empty gun and the mirror onto the table and booked it out the back of the arena. The sun was failing, and he dodged around other performers, the shuckster tables selling hair tonics and syphilis elixirs, the sticky children, their drunk parents. His set-up was on the back end of the circus, a small pitched tent half the size of a covered wagon, barely big enough to hold his bedroll and the table where he made awful deals with soused outlaws. He had to get there as soon as possible. He needed to _move_. He needed to avoid DeGroot, who may actually be the one to kill him. He needed to avoid Gates, and Randall, and every other citizen in this Godforsaken town. He needed to pack up his meager belongings, leave some of his recently won money behind for Gates as payment for one of the horses he was about to steal, and then he’d be gone.

There was someone waiting for him in his tent.

The man was clad head to toe in black, masked in shadows, so Silver was all the way inside his room before he saw him.

Silver -- did _not_ scream.

A thin shaft of golden light at an opening near the top of the tent was the only illumination in the room. The man was a silhouette leaning against his table, his crossed feet the only thing visible. The man said nothing.

Silver felt a tremor in his hands, the urge to grab his guns, but he held back. He got lucky last time, getting away unseen and unheard, but he never got _that_ lucky twice. And he didn’t spend his whole life getting as good as he got by pulling the moment he got nervous.

“I’ve had a long series of days behind me, and what appears to me to be an even longer set of days ahead, and you have the misfortune of being right in the fucking center of them.” The man had one of those voices -- nothing particularly exceptional or recognizable in it, but it was a voice that demanded to be heard.

“I -- excuse me?”

“I half-suspected,” continued the man, “when I made my way over here, that you knew exactly what you were doing last night, when you shot Singleton. When you stole from me.”

“I think you have the wrong te--”

“But catching part of your act just now, I got the impression just what kind of man you are. You strike me as the type who’s lived their whole life in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The man stood upright. The light now fell directly on his face, his chin tilted up so Silver could see his face fully, even with the brim of his hat, and Silver was momentarily struck by the paleness of his eyes. It startled him and he didn’t know why. It seemed shocking, a man so shrouded in shadows with such light eyes.

Of course, Silver recognized the Captain of the Walrus Gang, James Flint. Like everyone in the West, he paid attention to the Wanted posters, with the long list of crimes beneath the drawing that, frankly, didn’t do the man justice.

“Oh,” said Silver miserably.

Flint hummed in agreement, his lips twitching ever so slightly.

Silver wanted to move. Flint seemed both the snake charmer holding him in place with a gaze and his words, and the snake himself, ready to strike the moment you looked away. “If this is about that card game earlier today, it was just an innocent bet, but you can have it all back.”

“Of course we can. In fact I already have.” Silver’s eye darted around his room quickly to notice that his room had, indeed, been ransacked. “But this is about the man you killed last night and what you stole from us.”

Silver smiled. It was his natural instinct when he felt caught. “You saw my show before, you said? You mustn’t believe the stories I tell, sir. I shoot targets, tin cans. I don’t shoot people.”

“And yet, you shot Singleton.”

“I assure you, I didn--”

“He came to you last night,” Flint interrupted. “He was drunk. I  knew Singleton, and he was mean _sober_ , so I can guess he wasn’t coming at you with a very persuasive argument. He wanted you to be his gun, I wager? You said no, and you were the last in a long line of people to tell him ‘no’ yesterday, and he took it badly. _Extremely_ badly. Although it seems to me you don’t have a single scratch on you.”

Silver said nothing.

Flint looked him up and down, musing. “A room this small, and I know Singleton had a wide reach. You must move real fast.”

Three things happened in the next three seconds:

Flint took a step towards Silver.

Silver pulled both guns from his holsters and trained them on Flint.

Silver felt a gun barrel pressing into the back of his skull.

Flint didn’t look worried by the guns in his face. He smirked.

“You _are_ fast.” He sounded genuinely impressed. “But that’s Anne Bonny behind you, and she’s pretty fast, too. ‘Course, she could have molasses running through her veins and you’d still end up with all your brains blown out. So drop ‘em.”

Silver took a deep breath. Asking him to drop his guns was like asking him to drop his own hands. But he pointed them upwards and removed his fingers from the trigger, and they were unceremoniously ripped from his hands from behind. The gun still pointing at his head suggested there was more than Anne Bonny at his back.

Flint was still smiling. “You shot Singleton.”

“Sure,” said Silver. There seemed no point denying that part now. “I shot him. But it was as you said. He was looking to end me first. No one would fault me for that.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you saved me a bullet. My issue is what you took from him.”  

Silver’s relationship with the truth was similar to his relationships with God and with his fellow man: it all depended on what each situation called for. “You mean his boots? I’m afraid they weren’t my size.”

In two steps Flint was in front of him and had grabbed him by the front of his shirt. He dragged him forward, which pulled him away from Bonny’s gun and also shifted his heavy wig back, so it slid to one side.

Flint snatched it all the way off, exposing Silver’s tied black hair and the strings holding the beard to his face, and blinked at him. A curious look passed over his face just for a second, but Silver was close enough to see it.

Flint then yanked the beard off his face unkindly, snorting as he said, “Is there anything about you that’s truthful?”

His hand reached for Silver’s eyepatch, and Silver jerked his head to the side, leaning as much as he could in Flint’s grasp.

“That is,” Silver said coldly.

Flint’s hand froze in the air before dropping. He looked at Silver’s face in full, and unlike before his expression was completely unreadable. Silver felt a chill, passing off the shiver that ran him through as due to the sudden loss of the abundantly warming hair.

“Now about that map.” Flint still held Silver’s shirt in a tight fist.

“Oh, that old piece of paper? Most of the information was missing, so it seemed worthless. I just threw it out.”

Now Flint’s expression was readable: completely pissed. He spun Silver around and pushed him against the table, and Silver would have fallen all the way onto his back if he hadn’t been able to catch himself on his hands. They had moved out of the dim light so Flint was completely shadowed, but Silver could see behind them Anne Bonny and the entire fucking rest of the fucking Walrus Gang, watching their leader manhandle him with something like surprise.

Flint leaned in close. Silver wished Flint had a weapon on him. If Flint had held a gun or a knife, at least Silver would know what to expect.

“You’re right,” Flint said, sounding quietly enraged, “in no one finding fault in you killing an outlaw, and since you know me you know who he was, too. You strike me as the kind of man who’d collect on a bounty as soon as fucking possible, which suggests to me you found what he had and knew of its considerably higher value.”

Flint’s breath was as warm as the rest of him. Silver’s heart had been racing from the minute he left his final show, and in his experience, the faster his heart beat, the more likely the decisions he made would lead to his heart finally _stopping_. But also in his experience, the latter had yet to actually ever happen.

Silver smiled wider than before, because now he was well and truly caught. He cocked his head and looked at Flint with his one good eye and said, “You seem to know an awful lot about what kind of man I am, _Captain_.”

The silence was deafening, and terrifying, the only immediate reaction from Flint the tightening of his hand on Silver’s shirt. Silver realized, with some surprise, that he was _excited_ to see what would happen next, as well as afraid. He’d worked for Gates for about two years now and it was better work than jobs he’d had before, certainly, but the luster of show business had worn off very soon after he’d started. Working for a Wild West show was like trying to sing a love song without ever feeling the emotion firsthand. The words were easy, but devoid of that real rush.

He felt that rush now, trapped in a room with a dozen ways to die, and he didn’t understand it. He _liked_ living, he always had, but in the still moments of his days he’d find himself wondering if he was actually living right.

“Flint,” said one of the Walrus Gang. Silver looked over Flint’s shoulder and identified William Manderly, also known as Billy Bones, according to his Wanted poster. The sign neglected to mention how he got that nickname, but Silver had a very active imagination. “It wasn’t in his room. He must have it on him.”

Another weightier silence followed that. Flint looked away from Silver for a moment, thinking, before he pulled Silver back off the table and pushed him towards where he’d been standing before, in front of the Walrus Gang.

“Search him then,” Flint growled.

* * *

Over the years, Billy had seen Flint behave in a number of different ways. He’d seen him enraged, smug, drunk, confused, depressed, annoyed. Once he'd even seen him amused.

Billy didn't know what the fuck he was looking at now.

Flint was watching Billy pat the gunslinger down, his eyes glittering, his teeth and fists clenched tight. He crackled like lightning.

“I told you,” said Silverado, standing still while Billy patted him down. All he felt was an overly starched costume and dusty boots still tacky from a fresh coat of red paint. “I don't have what you're looking for. Not anymore.”

When Flint got mad it was always this quiet thing, right up until the last moment. You only saw it coming if you could get a good look at his eyes. Right now, though, his whole body was screaming with violent energy. He clearly wanted to do _something,_ but Billy didn't think even Flint knew what.

This was the second time that day Flint's behavior had surprised Billy. Earlier when they’d sat in the tavern together, it seemed to Billy that all of Flint’s fervor that had pushed them this last week had disappeared. He wasn't entirely defeated -- he still aggressively interviewed every gun or drunk in Guthrie’s, but when every question was met with a dead end, Billy had expected broken bottles and broken bones. Instead every man just got a final firm bodily shake. He might as well have shrugged it off.

Billy suspected Flint had learned something from Scott that had taken the bite out of his hunt for the Vasquez loot. This afternoon, everything seemed to be in God’s hands. Now, everything rested in the hands of a thieving clown.

Flint got right back in Silverado’s face. “What did you do with it?”

A pause. “I destroyed it.”

Flint un-holstered his gun. “Try again.”

“Okay! Christ. I mailed it.”

Flint blinked. “To _who?_ ”

“My aunt. She lives in Hoboken.”

Flint closed his eyes. Billy understood. He was also wondering if $200,000 was worth it if it meant going to New Jersey.

“Why the _fuck,_ ” said Flint, fixing his glare on Silverado again, “did you mail it to your fucking aunt? Is she also a thieving treasure hunter?”

Silverado scoffed, reaching into his pocket and removing a handkerchief. He wiped down his face, wiping off the pale makeup “The only thing she hunts for is Jesus. And I’m not a -- _treasure hunter_ , okay? And I think you’ll want to take a hard look in the mirror before you accuse anyone of being a thief.” He had on the left side of his face, running underneath his eyepatch, an old jagged scar. It cut across his eyebrow and disappeared into the shadow of his cheek.

Flint pointed his pistol at Silverado. “I guess we’ll making a trip up north, then. Thanks for the help.”

“Wait!” Silverado’s hands were raised in a surrender, but he just looked annoyed. “Listen. First of all, you’d never find my aunt if you knocked on ever door in Hoboken, but it’s nice to know _harassing little old ladies_ is on the long list of crimes perpetrated by the Walrus Gang. But you don’t need to go anywhere. I’ve memorized it.”

“You what?”

“I memorized it, before I mailed it. I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible, because it seemed like the kind of thing that got people dead. Not to mention two days ago we were stopped outside of Topeka, and rumors were already spreading about the famed Vasquez map being stolen.”

Billy looked sideways, and caught Vane’s eye. Vane raised a single eyebrow at him.They had acted on hearsay when they’d been hunting the map. No one had been exactly sure where it was hidden, save the law enforcement who saw fit to hang him. News getting out that the thing had been found and was now missing was -- troubling. Especially if the rumors also identified who took it.

Flint pressed his gun into Silverado’s heart. He didn’t seem surprised by the news at all.

“It’s a key,” Silverado blurted out. He looked down at the gun on him, and he seemed to be thinking quickly. “It was like finding a key but not knowing where the lock was, right? The map only told you the whereabouts within twenty miles of what looked like dense, tricky terrain. It’s useless unless you know where those twenty miles _are_. I figured it was too hot to hold onto, so I memorized it and got rid of it, until I could figure out where it was.”

“Okay,” said Flint. “So you’re going to write it all out for us.”

Silverado laughed, just long enough for Flint to cock his gun.

“Mr. Silverado, do I strike you as the kind of man one laughs at lightly?”

“That’s not --” He stopped, swallowed. Then he said, “That’s not my name. That’s just for the show.”

“I actually don’t give a fuck.”

Now Silverado -- or whoever he was -- looked pissed. “I’m not going to write it down only for you to kill me afterwards.”

“Why should we believe you?” Billy asked. “How do we know your memory is any good?”

Silverado kept his gaze on Flint. “I’m guessing you looked at it for at least briefly, yes?” At Flint’s nod, he said, “Ask me any detail you remember.”

They’d only had the map in their possession a short while before it was gone. Flint had held it the longest, and Billy knew he was a learned man, for as much as he tried to hide it.

“What were the three numbers scrawled in the upper right corner?”

“16-6-24. I’m guessing the safe combination?”

“And in the bottom left, there was --”

“It looked like a house, perhaps a school or a church, right before a river crossing. It’s a good thing Vasquez had skills as an armed robber, because he never would have made it as an artist.”

Flint looked at the sharpshooter hard, thinking. Then before Billy could blink he’d taken a step back, holstering his gun. He wasn’t looking at anyone when he said, “Fine. You’re coming with us, then.”

“I’m sorry. What?” This was Jack, who’d been hovering outside the tent as a lookout.

“No _fucking_ way,” Anne spat. She still had her gun out, aiming at nothing in particular. Billy thought she couldn’t decide who she wanted to shoot more.

Silverado pointed at Anne, nodding emphatically. “I find myself agreeing. I was thinking more like getting on a train and _shouting_ the directions at you as I rode away.”

“You’ll either tell us now, or you’re coming with. _Or_ I just shoot you, and start knocking on doors in Hoboken. Now I know which option I’d prefer. Yourself?”

“I’ve -- signed a contract with Mr. Gates. He won’t be pleased if I disappear in the night.”

“He’ll live,” said Flint, grabbing Silverado by the arm and pulling him towards the door.

“I want a share.”

Flint stopped. He didn’t release his grip on Silverado’s arm.  

Silverado’s face was unconcerned. The panic he’d displayed a second ago had disappeared. “Singleton’s portion will do,” he said. “I figure that’s fair.”

“ _Fair?_ ” His grip tightened hard.

Silverado didn’t even wince. He merely shrugged. “Since I had to give up his bounty. “

Singleton’s share would have been about $30,000 _more_ than his bounty. Flint looked like he wanted to _eat_ the man. But then he said, “Half of what his share would have been.”

“Deal.” Silverado grinned. “And I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I was allowed to change before we begin our journey. Unless you want to be seen with a man dressed like this?” He gestured over the gaudy blue shirt and red boots.

Flint looked him up and down, then released his grip as though burned.

“Vane, Billy. Stay here with him. We’re going to get supplies. We’re leaving tonight. Where is your horse stabled?”

“Uh. I don’t have one.”

Flint’s body shook with a visible effort not to pick something up and throw it. “What kind of grown man doesn’t have his own horse?”

“A grown man with limited funds and access to a free ride in a covered wagon?”

“Fine. We’ll just have to help ourselves to one of your boss’s.”

“Absolutely not.” Silverado folded his arms and attempted to look stern. “I’ve committed several crimes in the last 24 hours, I’ll admit, but I won’t be adding _horse thief_ to the list. And Gates _will_ see me hanged for that.”

“Well, what were you planning to do, then?” Billy interjected. “Assuming you were racing back here to make off with our money, of course.”

Silverado looked unrepentant. “I was going to leave some of your money in exchange for payment of a horse. We can still do that, if you like…”

Flint opened his mouth, then closed it, along with his eyes. He seemed to be counting under his breath. Then he said. “We’ll figure something out.”

He was halfway out the door before the sharpshooter said, “Flint, is it?”

Flint turned. The sun had set, but a few people in the show had set up lanterns throughout the tents, so the livid look on his face was clear as day.

“My name is John Silver,” said Silver, smiling again, “if you’re interested.”

Flint looked at him a moment longer before turning, Anne and Jack following. Their protests at _everything_ drifted away with them.

Silver exhaled loudly, collapsing into a chair. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging it loose from a tie.

“He seems fun,” Silver said, kicking off his red boots. They went flying across the tent. “I didn’t expect him to want to leave tonight, though.”

Billy also hadn’t been planning for that. He’d hoped they’d get at least one full night’s sleep before setting out to Colorado. It could have been nothing, just the fire from the previous days reignited by Silver and the need to get rid of him as soon as possible. Or it could have been something else. Flint instinctively kept secrets, and Billy understood the impulse, having it himself. But Billy didn’t keep secrets that affected them all.

“Why?” said Billy. “Hoping to escape?”

“Hardly,” said Silver with a snort. He stood, unbuttoning his shirt. “I’d been sitting here, stuck in this -- _job_ for far too long, with a golden key and no clue where the chest lay. I was picturing all this research I’d have to do. God, _talking_ to people. Truly, it sounded exhausting. And here I am, fortunate enough to stumble right into the man with all the answers.”

Vane snorted. It was the first sound he’d made in Silver’s presence, and it caused him to jump, like he hadn’t noticed Vane before. That was how Billy knew Silver was a fool. The only people who didn’t notice Vane were the kinds of people who shortly were no longer alive enough to notice anything else.

“Fortune, you’d call it?” Billy picked a more subdued tan shirt off the bed and tossed it at Silver. “He’s just as likely to kill you standing over the money as he is to do it here.”

Silver sniffed the shirt Billy had thrown before shrugging and pulling it on over his stained, torn undershirt. “I like my odds,” he said, unbuckling his empty gun holster and setting it down on the table. He started to undo his trousers before he stopped and looked at Billy and Vane. “Do you mind?”

Billy had searched the tent himself, and had found nothing that could be used as a weapon. Still, he reached into his jacket for his chewing tobacco. He opened his can, stuck some between his gums, but otherwise didn’t move.

Silver huffed, but continued to take off his pants. “You really are a cheerful bunch, you know that? The only one of you who can carry on a conversation is the one I met earlier. Rackham? At least _he_ is capable of lightening up after a few drinks.”

“I think he’s the one you have to worry about most,” Billy said. “He’d specifically asked on our way here to be the one to kill you for beating him at cards.”

Silver frowned. “He played a good game! He taught me a few tricks I hadn’t ever seen before.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll thank you before he shoots you.”

Silver sighed, pulling on a pair of faded brown trousers. He put his holster back on, even though there was no chance of getting his guns back.

“Why are you doing this?” Billy asked, genuinely curious. “You have an actual real source of income here. Even if we are technically kidnapping you, you’re staking your life on the word of a gang of outlaws.”

“Imagine you’ve spent your whole life developing a skill-set,” Silver said, distracted as he searched for his boots among the ruins of his bedroom, “and you’ve perfected it. You’re the best in the entire country, and the only way it earns you a single dime is doing it in dirty tents, dancing around in a whore’s wig.”

Billy highly doubted Silver was the best in the whole country, but he said, “There are plenty of ways for a man to make an earning behind a gun.”

Silver found his boots beneath the remnants of his torn mattress. He sat down again to put them on. “What, like a sheriff? A Marshall? They don’t recruit one-eyed men. And less than lawful jobs will still pay only half of what they’d pay any other mercenary, even when confronted with my skills, because there’s always, as they say, a 50/50 chance I’ll miss.”

He finished putting his boots on and looked up at Billy. “I never miss,” he said. “But a one-eyed sharpshooter is still nothing more than a novelty. So yes, I see any opportunity to get away from this goddamned sideshow and I’ll take it. Why?”

Billy blinked. “Why what?”

Silver’s one eye was too knowing. Billy had thought it before, but now he knew for sure: he did not like John Silver. “Why are _you_ doing this?”

When Billy didn’t answer right away, Silver glanced at Vane. He was sticking his head out the opening of the tent, keeping watch, and wouldn’t have said anything anyway. But Billy saw the tightening of his grip on the canvas, and he suspected Silver saw it too.

“See,” said Silver. He was smiling again. “The _correct_ answer for a couple of outlaws is -- a big score gives you the opportunity to give up your life of crime. To settle down, to stop stealing from other people, to stop living your life one bullet at a time. Is that not right?”

Billy spat his tobacco on the floor of Silver’s tent. “Yeah,” he said. “That’d be nice.”

Silver got up and stooped down, picking up his hat from the mass of hair still left on the floor. “In my experience,” he said, putting it on, “with the people I’ve met in my life, and this is true of my own self: it’s the loud ones who want peace. Those of us prone to cursing, yelling, manipulating, giving speeches, telling jokes, spinning yarns -- all we want is some simplicity in our lives. Now this isn’t always right, of course, but what I’ve found is the converse is _always_ truth. It’s the quiet ones who want anything _but_ peace. The silent are always ready to keep moving, to spill blood, to die by the sword. Am I right?”

Billy didn’t say anything. At that moment, he wished he did have a sword. He wondered what Flint would do, if he shot Silver himself, or if he stood by while Vane did it. The money would be gone forever, but the sudden absence of Silver’s words in the small space would bring one hell of a rush. It was a ten day ride to Boulder from here. The question wasn’t a matter of _if_ one of them shot Silver but _where_ and _when_.

Vane moved aside from the opening, and for a moment Billy thought the answer was _here_ and _now_ , until Flint stepped inside.

“I sent Jack and Anne to ready the supplies. We’ll meet them at the stables. I had to go pick something up from Scott.”

Billy frowned. “What?”

Flint smiled, holding up one hand, and Billy found himself smiling too -- at the dawning look of horror that bloomed on Silver’s face. The handcuffs in Flint’s hand gleamed dully in the night.

* * *

 

_September 7, 1875_

 

It was that perfect time of day, early enough in the afternoon to still be drinking coffee but late enough in the day to excuse filling it with whiskey. A lot of men didn’t look for excuses when it came to the drink, but Sheriff Scott was a busy man, a respectful man, and he waited until at least noon before partaking. And, to be honest, whiskey was really the only way to endure Eleanor’s coffee.

He upended his flask into his steel mug so it was more like liquor with a splash of coffee in it. He and Eleanor sat in his office, cautiously sighing with something like relief. The Walrus Gang had hastily retreated the night before, without razing Nassau; a government man had sent word they’d be coming within the week to confirm the death of Mr. Singleton and supply the reward money; and the goddamn circus was clearing out of town just in time for Kansas Pacific to arrive.

They sat on opposite sides of his desk, both with their feet up. His cells were empty, her saloon could manage itself for an hour. The two of them knew how rare a moment of peace was, and so they knew when to savor it.

“How’s Madi doing?” Eleanor asked, all casual. “I never see her around the saloon anymore.”

“That’s because I told her to stay away,” Scott said pointedly. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

Eleanor was a picture of innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Madi is a dear acquaintance.”

Scott hummed. “My daughter is a good girl,” he said, “and you, Eleanor Guthrie, are a heartbreaker.”

The innocent expression dropped completely and Eleanor smirked into her coffee. “Oh yes, you’re quite right. She’s a _very_ good girl.”

“I _will_ arrest you.”

Eleanor laughed, but before she could respond, the doors to his office swung open with a bang, and in walked Dufresne.

Scott had known a lot of white men in his life, but Dufresne was positively the whitest. He had the complexion of spoiled milk and the personality to match. Scott knew, technically, they were on the same side of the law, but he knew men like Dufresne wouldn’t ever see it that way either.

“Mr. Dufresne,” said Scott, not getting up or even bothering to lower his feet. “Can I get you some coffee?”

Dufresne sneered, looking down at the two of them over his tiny, dusty glasses. “You were supposed to inform me when Flint and his crew left town.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was my responsibility.” Scott sipped his drink. “Looks like we’re both victims of miscommunication.”

Eleanor snorted. “Besides, I would think an officer of the Pinkerton _Detective_ Agency would have been able to fucking detect that for himself,” she said.

Dufresne didn’t acknowledge her. She didn’t have a tin badge on her chest the way Scott did, but he knew Dufresne afforded as much respect for Scott as he did her. Which was to say, none at all.

“They headed west though, right?” Dufresne asked through gritted teeth.

Scott shrugged. “Last I heard they had visited the Wild West Show on the edge of town. This was late last night.” Flint had been by before he’d gone, of course. He’d wanted to buy some handcuffs off him, but Scott had some to spare and it wasn’t the sort of request a smart man would choose to examine too hard.

Dufresne clenched his hands, looking ready to draw. It’d be mighty interesting if he did. “Do you know if they found the map?”

Scott’s eyes flicked to Eleanor quickly, and he hoped his expression was neutral when he shrugged again. “I don’t know about any map. I assumed they were just looking for vengeance over their man’s death.”

Dufresne stared at him hard, and then he smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “You protecting a bunch of murderous thieves just proves to everyone how much of a joke your appointment as Sheriff is. But it doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t have left this town without that map. And Hornigold will catch them, and they’ll all swing. And I’ll make sure you two are next.” He strode out as forcefully as he arrived, the doors creaking wildly as they swung.

“It’s hard to believe God made a man that fucking tall and saw fit to give him such a small fucking cock,” said Eleanor drily. She raised an eyebrow at Scott. “What’s this about a map?”

“I have no idea,” Scott said, getting to his feet. He walked out his office, into the cell room to steady the doors.

“Wouldn’t be that Vasquez map I heard reported stolen over the wire, would it?” Eleanor called after him.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Scott yelled back. He stepped out onto his porch, watching Dufresne mount his horse and take off down the road at a gallop. Scott gave another sigh of relief as he watched the Pinkerton head off out of town.

So Flint was riding right into a trap, like he’d suspected. Hopefully, that meant he wouldn’t be caught off guard, but truthfully, Scott just wished they’d all kill each other out west and never bother Nassau again.

Suddenly, Scott noticed someone leaning against the railing of hs porch.

“What the fuck are you still doing here?” he asked angrily. “I thought I told you to the get out of town.”

Ned Low turned to him and stared at him with his glassy eye. He tipped his hat. “Just fixing to, Sheriff,” he said, walking away. “I was just fixing to.”

* * *

 

_September 9, 1875_

 

They were three days out from Nassau, and James Flint was a man with a lot on his mind.

There was Hornigold. He had spoken to Singleton about _something_ and it wasn’t about the fucking weather. Clearly they’d been staging some kind of trap for them, and if it hadn’t been triggered in Nassau then it surely was meant to be where the money lay, if Singleton was stupid enough to reveal it’s relative location to a bunch of fucking Pinks.

Some people thought it crass to speak ill of the dead, but Flint was not one of those people, and Singleton, he had no doubt, had been exactly stupid enough.

On top of that, the theft of the map had now become common knowledge, if Silver was to be believed. Assuming the worst, which Flint often did, everyone was now looking for them as well as Hornigold’s crew. The U.S. Marshals didn’t have the connections Flint did, so even with the map they had no clue where to start looking for the stolen money.

Finding Vasquez’s loot would be a major triumph for them, which in turn would result in a major push to remove outlaws like Flint from the countryside. If Hornigold knew of the safe’s location, a good Pink would reveal that to the Marshals, but even though nothing was going their way, Flint still had faith in Hornigold’s massive ego, and could assume they were not working together.

And of course, there was always the possibility that gold prospectors had expanded their search along the creek that ran through that part of the Rocky Mountains and had stumbled onto the buried spot. Or had simply blown it to fucking pieces with dynamite.

On top of that, his shoulder ached as usual, but was now accompanied with sharp pains in his lower back from riding and sleeping on the cold ground every night. Their food had to be rationed now to provide for a sixth member of their party, so they’d already run out of coffee and were dangerously low on whiskey. His eyes stung from the constant dust, the scars on his neck chafed where his sweat-covered bandana rubbed against them, and he hadn’t slept.

So, Flint had enough to think about. Legitimate, understandable problems, with no energy to spare on a handsome, one-eyed moron who’d been rubbing his ass against Flint’s crotch for the last three fucking days.

They were sharing a horse.

It had been too early in the evening when they’d left Nassau to steal a horse. Those goddamned hillbillies didn’t blink at a man found dead behind their post office, but steal another man’s horse and they’d send the hounds of Hell after you. Flint had enough people gunning for the Walrus Gang without the aggravation of the citizens of Nassau chasing after them.

He’d thought they could alternate towing Silver. Jack and Anne already shared a horse though, and Vane, although he didn’t ever speak, sure as Hell could laugh, and he’d done so heartily in Flint’s face when he’d asked. And Billy, who never laughed, looked like the mere suggestion would be enough to make him abandon the Walrus Gang once and for all.

(About a day out of Nassau, Flint realized that they could have taken fucking _Singleton’s_ goddamn shitting horse, and he’d been this close to turning them back around, tight schedule be damned. But in the end he decided not to mention it and hoped no one else would think of it either.)

Silver sat in front of him, because even with his hands cuffed, he could easily strangle Flint or grab one of his guns from behind. And Flint was certainly not handing him the reins, which meant to steer properly he had to reach around to hold and keep his head basically on Silver’s shoulder, his dark curly hair brushing against his cheek. Every morning, an attempt was made to keep some space between their lower bodies, but the movement of the horse on the uneven terrain unavoidably shifted them closer together, Flint pressed firmly into Silver’s back, his thighs framing Silver’s tight, that ass sliding against the front of his pants so often Flint was beginning to suspect it wasn’t actually an accident.

No $200,000 was worth this.

Flint had thought this part of himself had been killed off long ago, slowly dying over ten years,  first beaten and hanged from a low branch outside a small Pennsylvania town before the killing blow, a shot through the back of the head in the Black Hills. The concave of his body was nothing more than an abandoned mine -- absent of anything of worth, leaving only cold stone, the faint trickle of icy water, coughing dust, and the fading footsteps of people long gone. Truthfully, he’d been glad to be rid of those usual urges of most men. He knew all too well the mistakes they inevitably caused.

He’d known John Silver all of three days, but Flint was smart enough to know he had “mistake” written all over him.

But a part of him -- a _stupid_ part of him, a small part of him all lit up like a lantern at the end of a dark mineshaft -- thought Silver had “inevitable” written all over him too.

Perhaps Flint wouldn’t have been so pissed about this if Silver wasn’t so fucking annoying.

After the five day push to Nassau, the horses needed a rest or else they’d probably drop dead beneath them. So they traveled at a much slower pace, allowing for an actual conversation no one wanted to have except Silver. An argument could be made that the devastatingly dull landscape of grasslands and dry shrubbery over the last few days could make even the most irritating talk seem appealing, but no one was willing to make such an argument out loud.

Silver had gotten over his indignation over being handcuffed after the first day, and instead used it as an excuse not to help set up camp each night. He inquired after the logistics of robbing a bank, told ridiculous stories of life in a circus, and shared sordid tales of a life abroad that couldn’t be true, because there was no way a man like Silver could travel to the far corners of the Earth and not get killed in the process. It was simply impossible. Whenever there was a lull and he couldn’t think of another story, he told awful jokes and stupid riddles that drove Flint fucking insane because he _hated_ riddles. One time he’d actually started singing “Home On The Range” but didn’t get beyond the first line before Vane drew on him.

Flint had experienced more pleasant journeys when he’d had actual bullets in him.

“So,” said Silver, “how did you all get the name ‘The Walrus Gang’ anyway?”

Unfortunately, they’d all learned quickly that ignoring Silver usually meant him carrying on the conversation with his own self, filling in answers for them, which was so much worse than actually engaging, so Billy reluctantly responded.

“During one of our first bank jobs,” he said, riding alongside them. “Anne accidentally left two knives sticking out of the chest of the bank manager. Apparently a poet masqueraded as a journalist thought they looked like tusks and described them as such. The name stuck.”

Silver nodded. The back of his hair tickled Flint’s nose. “Which was the accident? Stabbing the bank manager or leaving the knives behind?”

“Those were _nice_ knives,” Anne said from behind them, causing Silver to startle just a little. “I miss those knives.”

“I got you another set,” Jack said, turning to look at her with a pout. “They were almost identical.”

 _“Almost_ ,” said Anne.

“I’ve heard some of your stories, you know,” Silver admitted. “It’s why I tried to run away from you, before we all became friends.” He didn’t seem to notice the indignant huff that emanated from all five members of the Walrus Gang. “But I’ve long ago learned never to take it on face value the things I hear from the company I tend to keep. Most of the stories,” Silver added, looking back at Flint with his one eye, “were about you.”

Flint snorted, despite himself, “Such as?”

“About why they call you ‘The Captain,’” Silver said. “I heard you were the only survivor of the Alamo, that you served as a Captain for the Texian Army.”

“I haven’t heard _that_ one before,” Flint said mildly.

“Um,” said Silver, shifting against him. “The man who told me that assumed you were much older, obviously.”

“Nah,” said Billy. He held onto his horse with one hand while opening his cannister of tobacco. “I heard you were a Captain in the Union Army. Led the fight against Pickett’s Charge yourself.” He shot Silver an evil look. “That man at your back is said to have killed a thousand men in a single battle, all by himself.”

Flint was close enough to see Silver visibly swallow, and he liked how it made his neck look.

“Really?” said Jack, sounding shocked. “I thought you used to be a Navy Captain. Didn’t you help see the British off Lake Champlain?”

“Just how fucking old do people think I am?” Flint asked, a little pissed. And a ship captain? Really? Anything bigger than a rowboat made him seasick.

“Wait a moment.” Jack pulled his horse along the other side of them. “You mean that _wasn’t_ you who led the Union Army to victory at Fort Henry?”

 _“That was Grant,_ ” said Flint. “I was a first lieutenant, _briefly_ , for the Army of the Potomac, for Chrissake. My uniform coat was the warmest clothing I owned for awhile, and I wore it _once_ when robbing a bank in Wyoming. It’s not my fault the teller can’t distinguish proper rank.”

“' _The_ _Lieutenant'_ just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?” Silver said cheekily. “I’ve heard other things about you, too.”

Flint raised an eyebrow, even though Silver couldn’t see it, which also meant he could let one corner of his mouth quirk upwards. “Such as?” he said again.

“Such as,” said Silver mockingly, “I heard you died.”

Suddenly they were alone -- Jack and Anne falling way behind and Billy riding ahead to join Vane, because one doesn’t become a feared, dangerous outlaw if one had any degree of subtlety.

“I’m sorry,” said Silver quickly. “I didn’t --”

“What do the stories say?” Flint kept his horse at a steady pace, as steady as his voice, but his arms framing Silver’s waist might have tightened just a hair’s breadth. “Tell me.”

Silver fiddled with the chains around his wrists, like he couldn’t decide how dedicated Flint was to the hidden cash that he couldn’t kill Silver in a rage if properly provoked.

“There were a couple stories,” he said finally, unexpectedly soft. “You’d been blasted to pieces in some battle somewhere, and a witch stitched you back together to do her bidding. Or you’d been executed, hanged from a willow tree and are now doomed to walk the Earth as a revenant, a visible ghost hunting after your executioners. Or you were never actually alive, but instead you’re a golem without a master, mindless in your hatred with a heart made of hard clay.”

The silence that followed was loud, the clomp of their horses along the hardened rock of the plains almost dulled in it. The others were out of earshot now, and a light wind blew over the landscape, specks of sand stinging at their hands, curled into fists and beside each other, not quite touching. Silver kept his eye facing forward.

Flint leaned in and said lowly, into Silver’s ear, “All true.” He smiled at the way Silver swallowed again, the way he shivered slightly.

Silver also smiled, but it was a nervous one. “They can’t _all_ be true.”

Flint didn’t respond, because it was impossible to explain. How could he, a dead thing, explain death to someone so alive? Instead he said, “And what about you? How many stories are there about your missing eye?”

Silver tensed for a moment, but then his smile stopped being so nervous. He turned his face towards Flint, but Flint hadn’t moved back from his ear and now they were _too close,_ his eyes flicking down to Silver’s mouth for just a second. “Oh, Captain,” said Silver, in a tone that suggested he saw Flint look. “There are _hundreds._ ”

They were _too close_ , and Flint hadn’t thought about the money in almost five minutes, so he dug his heels into the sides of his horse and galloped ahead. The rest of them immediately sped up to join him, and the rush of wind put an end to any conversation.

They rode in relative silence for the rest of the afternoon, the scenery changing from flatland to rolling mounds. As the sun began to hang heavy in the sky, painting the waves of tallgrass a vibrant orange, they stopped at the base of a large hill. The ground was mostly clear, the grass having not yet recovered its length from when a herd of some beast last passed through the area. They set down on the western side, blocking some of the easterly winds that blew high in the night.

They went about their roles without discussion, setting up their camp with practised ease. Jack and Anne went out collecting sticks, dried brush, and stones, and then Anne built the campfire while Jack set up their tent. Vane preferred to sleep under the stars, so he immediately got the horses settled, unloading their packs and getting them fed and watered. Billy went over and helped Vane with them once he’d finished setting up his own tent. Flint would usually make his own camp and then get started on dinner, the only one of them capable of making anything edible, but it had been Singleton’s job to comb the surrounding area for any signs of nearby predators or other dangers, and that was more pressing that food. Dinner just had to wait.

Silver did nothing. He had no tent to set up and so he slept outside near the fire, guarded by Vane and then whoever took over the lookout post halfway through the night. Silver said he was useless with his hands chained up, just a hindrance really. Though on the first night, he had offered to cook. However, he mistook a can of peaches for a can of chili beans, mixed them with some hard cheese, and made Billy sick in the bushes well into the night. So now Silver sat, and did nothing, and tried his best to avoid Billy.

Which was a worthwhile goal, something Flint was also attempting. But he wasn’t surprised when Billy found him near the top of the hill, checking some holes in a nearby patch of shrubs for rattlers.

“We need to talk,” said Billy.

“Nothing happened,” said Flint.

Billy folded his arms and glared. Flint aggressively stabbed at one of the holes in the ground with a long stick, hoping it was filled with poisonous snakes.

Billy spat some tobacco onto the ground and said, “Want to try that again?”

Flint scowled. “What did you want to discuss, Billy?”

“I’ve accepted the fact that you’re in charge here.” Billy sounded as though this was something he’d practiced in his head, so Flint dropped the stick and faced him fully. “I’m fine with that. You’ve treated us fairly, listened to our input and taken our advice, and you’ve done right by us, for the most part. I’ve never worried about your intentions. Until now.”

Flint rubbed at his beard and sighed. “I haven’t hidden my plans for the money, Billy. You know once we get it, I’m done.”

“I understand,” Billy rushed in. “I do. But it’s not the money that’s troubling me.”

“So what is?”

“Before Singleton,” he said, “when the map was just a…. _possibility_ , basically a myth, it was like -- the money was just out there, waiting in the dirt. Waiting for us to just come along and pick it up. Finding the map was supposed to be the hard part. Now, all of a sudden we’re racing against the clock to get at it. I understand when we were after Singleton, but now….I can’t help but feel like there’s something you’re not telling us.”

Flint was stuck. He needed all of them if he was going to get the money, if what he suspected was waiting for them turned out to be true. If he told them the truth about Hornigold, however deserving they were to know it, there was every chance they’d abandon the plan entirely. Jack would probably stay, his lust for money -- all its potential -- was as great as Flint’s own. The others he could easily see walking away, the risk of capture too great for something that may not even actually exist. Of course, the smaller their number, the bigger his share of the cash, but without all of them he had no shot of getting any of it.

“It was always the plan, to move swiftly after retrieving the map,” Flint said. “Especially now, with Singleton stirring shit in town. You said Ned Low and his men were suspicious, and they were just _one_ gang he talked to. Not to mention what Silver said about the Marshalls. They know the map is gone, and it’s highly likely they’ve already pinned us for the robbery. I suspect they don’t know where the money is in relation to the countryside, but we don’t know that for sure.”

“If they’d recovered Vasquez’s money,” Billy pointed out, “we’d know it. That’d be all over the papers.”

“Probably,” he admitted. “There’s too much uncertain here, I’ll be the first to admit it. And I’m just….anxious.” Flint was almost surprised by his own sincerity.

Billy noticed though, and seemed to accept it. He watched the sun set for a moment, and then he said, “Back then, I knew what it would mean, becoming an outlaw. The danger I was keeping myself in, after, well. Everything. I was young and angry. That’s why I run with you, you know.” He looked back at Flint, took his hat off, and wiped his brow with the back of a dirty hand. “You’ve just as angry as me, only you know how to be smart about it. And you know enough about me to know it’s not death I’m afraid of.”

Flint knew, and he smiled, and it was only a little sad. “I know.” He turned and started to head back to the camp. “Hey, if it looks like things are headed south for you, I’ll do my best to put a bullet in you first.”

“Thanks,” said Billy drily, but he also sounded sincere.

They walked back quietly. Far off, the faint cooing of a grouse late to hibernate and the wind rustling the brush trees were the only sounds they heard. The sun washed the land with red, edged with purple and black, becoming a rippling reflection of the evening sky. In this space, it was almost impossible for Flint to feel hunted. It felt like they were totally alone in the world, forgotten, and he found it a comfortable feeling.

When they’d almost reached their camp, Billy said, “So. Can I assume the ‘nothing’ that ‘happened,’ didn’t happen with John Silver?”

Flint shoved Billy down the hill.

* * *

 Night had fallen on their little camp, and Anne felt a powerful wave of sleepiness hit her as she swallowed another swig of whiskey out of Jack’s flask. The heat of it pooled in her stomach, settling her dinner. Everything had been cleaned up and stashed away in case of night visitations from animals, and the only thing keeping them from their bedrolls was the energy to get themselves up from the fire and into their tents. This used to be a moment for quiet and contemplation. You run with the same men for awhile and you run out of things to talk about before long.

But the presence of a stranger, especially a mouthy little shit like this, kept the talk going, and Anne found herself not as bothered by it as she’d been even a day ago. She leaned against Jack’s side, listening idly, stealing more of Jack’s drink as he detailed Vane’s origin to a wide-eyed Silver.

“...and once she’d finished off the rapist, she moved swiftly on to destroying the cur’s own family, his crew, _their_ families, and everyone else she could find, leaving behind naught but a trail of blood, bone, and removed body parts.”

“That’s…” Silver shot Vane a nervous look. “...not true. Is it?”

Vane, perched on a flat rock on the other side of Silver, inhaled deeply on his cigar. He let out a puff of acrid smoke with a sharp grin.

“What’s the matter?” Anne said. “Don’t think women are capable of a thing like that?”

“That’s not it,” Silver protested. “It’s just...hard to picture.”

“Makes you imagine your own dear mother, does it?” Jack asked, taking his flask back.

“No,” said Silver. “I never had a mother.”

“What,” Flint interjected. He sat opposite Silver and frowned at him across the fire. “Everyone had a mother.”

Silver shrugged. “She died giving birth to me. My louse of a father never spoke of her. I think he hated her for being a Jew, so after he went too, I took her name instead. Fortunately, the nuns at Holy Angels Protectory didn’t protest it.”

A tight curl of anger twisted in the pit of Anne’s stomach, and Jack immediately put a hand between her shoulder blades. “She was Jewish?”

Something about her tone made Silver look at her cautiously, his eyebrows raised. “I assume so, if the slurs my drunken father threw at me and her ghost are to be believed. Why? Is that a problem?”

Anne didn’t say anything, but Jack responded, “Of course not. Unless you keep kosher, in which case I have some bad news about the buffalo jerky you just ate.”

Silver relaxed a little, laughing slightly. “I called myself Jewish to spite my father, and I spent enough years in a Catholic orphanage to result in no belief in any God of any kind.”

Anne had left her home with God, but had dropped Him piece by piece, like breadcrumbs, as she’d made her way across a vast ocean. By the time she’d arrived on land again He was gone from her heart and from her hands, the crumbs of her faith washed beneath the waves of the Atlantic. She didn’t think about it too much, didn’t mourn the lost path, didn’t think she’d ever want to retrace her steps and follow that trail, but every so often, she hungered for the whole of Him.

“You changed your name,” Anne said suddenly. “For the show.”

“Not my idea,” said Silver, scowling. “Thought it was too Jewish to appeal to the sideshow crowds. I suppose that’s probably true. All the more reason to get the fuck out of the whole business. Besides, I can’t help but feel I’m not the only one here who’s rebranded themselves.” He looked at all of them before his eyes settled on Flint.

“What?” Flint growled, hunching over, lighting another cigarette.

Silver smiled. “They call these the Flint Hills, don’t they?” Flint shot him a poisonous look and didn’t respond.

As a child, Anne had been taught that names were important. They were spiritual, they created and shaped everything, from the moment they’re first uttered. But she looked around the fire at Billy Bones, and Calico Jack, and Charles Vane, a name they’d given him when he’d been unable to tell them his own. She thought of her own name, and wondered if she’d be able to even properly pronounce it anymore. She tried to remember as a child the lesson that stated she had to stay the same shape she’d been when she was born, but she couldn’t find it in her memory. And she’d grown so much since then.

“So, what’s everyone’s plan for their share of the money?” Silver said brightly. “I’ll go first. I plan to travel north and build a big cabin in the mountainside, go entire months without seeing another person, and never having to work another day in my life. Flint?”

Flint seemed shocked for a moment, his cigarette ashing all over himself. Then he frowned, brushing himself off, and didn’t look at anyone.

“Fine, I’ll guess.” Silver grinned. “You’re going to buy your own tobacco farm. Is that it?”

“Fuck off,” said Flint.

“Now let’s see,” said Silver, looking over them. “Jack, I imagine you’re going to reinvent yourself and run for governor upstate somewhere.” Jack puffed up a little at that. “Ms. Bonny, I’m sorry to say I don’t see you as much of a governor’s wife.”

Anne snorted. “Too fucking right.” She felt Jack looking at her out the corner of his eye.

“No. Hmm.” Silver thought hard. “You don’t strike me as someone who steals for the money. Perhaps you’ll just bury your share, like Vasquez, and keep thieving until you die.”

Anne just shrugged. She’d been taking things she needed for as long as she could remember. Didn’t seem like much reason to stop, just because she had a lot of it. It might be nice, though, to take something to _keep_ , to hoard, to hang onto without immediately giving it away, trading it, or losing it. Jack used to make up stories to help her sleep, and when she was younger she thought he intended to make her the princess in all of them.

But in her dreams she was always the dragon, rings of smoke snorting from her nostrils, piled up high on a tower of her very own gold.

“Billy, of course,” continued Silver, “is going to stockpile weaponry and lead the country in another war. Ow!” He rubbed his forehead where the stone had hit it. Billy had aimed for the side without the eye, and Silver hadn’t seen it coming.

“I didn’t support the South,” Billy said angrily.

 _“Obviously_ ,” said Silver, “or else you probably wouldn’t be riding with the Potomac’s first lieutenant over there. I see you trying to start your own nation. United States of Manderly, a country of One. Or,” he added, “you’d join Vane in his endeavors.”

“Which are?” Billy, Anne could see, was trying hard not to sound too interested.

“That’s obvious, too.” Silver glanced at Vane, who blinked at him placidly. “Mr. Vane is going to give all his money away.”

Vane stared at Silver hard, before he shrugged slightly, leaning back on his rock, cigar firmly planted between his lips.

 _“ What_ ,” said Jack, sounding outraged. “Charles, please tell me this isn’t true. Or if he’s right, you plan on giving it to _me_.”

Vane predictably said nothing, so Silver answered. “It seems to me he’s no more interested in money than Ms. Bonny is. I can see him giving it all away to charity, or to some disenfranchised Native nation. Like Robin Hood.”

“Who?” said Billy.

“Old English folktale.” Silver reached into his jacket awkwardly, his hands still cuffed, and pulled out a metal book of pre-rolled cigarettes. He scooted closer to the fire. “He robbed from the rich to give to the poor.”

Vane kept leaning back, staring at the stars. He gave no further indication he was listening, but Billy looked lost in thought.

“What happens to him?” Anne asked. “Robin Hood? How’s it end?”

Silver, still crouched near the fire, shrugged with one shoulder, inhaling on his cigarette to get the end to catch.

But it was Flint who answered. “It didn’t.”

Anne looked at him, but his eyes were trained on the flames. “It’s a folktale,” he said. “They’re everlasting. They don’t have endings.”

Silver’s lips curled upwards around his cigarette. “Christ. That sounds _miserable.”_

“We’re going to Mexico,” Jack threw in suddenly. Anne saw the flask hanging limply in his hand, tipped over but nothing spilling, meaning they’d drank it all. Christ, the next week was going to be unbearable.

“Oh, yeah?” Silver moved back to his spot. “What’s in Mexico?”

 _“Beaches,_ ” said Jack expansively. “Beautiful white beaches that stretch out for miles. Blue oceans going on forever, rum flowing at all hours of the d--”

“I want to go to the Grand Canyon,” said Anne.

She saw them all exchange glances with each other, these fucking men with their eyebrows raised and their goddamn plans and stories that go nowhere. It took Anne a second to realize she was angry, which was strange, because that was normally her baseline. It was odd when she _wasn’t_ angry.

But suddenly she was a different kind of furious. It rumbled inside her, causing her to tremble in a way she hadn’t felt since she was a child. Usually, her rage made her still, focused. Now it threatened to shake her apart.

Jack felt it, and leaned away from her. He didn’t ask her what was wrong. He said, slowly, “We can go to the Grand Canyon. It’s on the way, almost.”

She stood up, the smoke from the campfire suddenly strangling. “I’m going to bed.” She left them in their silence without saying goodnight.

She took off her hat and her jacket, but left her boots on. She couldn't remember the last time she slept barefoot. The smoke scent clung to her hair, still choking, and she was tempted to grab one of her knives and hack away at it, but the tiredness in her arms stopped her from moving once she’d laid down on her bedroll. The bitterness on her tongue, the tremor in her spine -- these were what she tried to focus on. The what, and not the why.

Every time she closed her eyes she saw that postcard of Mexico, the one Jack kept in his breast pocket. It had been there for a couple years now, the edges rounded and stained, and he liked to pull it out and look at it silently when he got drunk enough he passed his jovial self and went straight to maudlin.

In the postcard the sea looked dark and cold, and the beach looked like a long line of salt, and it was all so empty. She saw it when she closed her eyes so she kept them open, fixed on the wall of their tent, until Jack crawled in beside her less than hour later.

“Is this about Max?” Jack said quietly. He’d curled up on the other side of the tent but didn’t touch her. “I know you were with her before we left Nassau.”

Anne said nothing.

“I know she’s important to you,” he said. “You know I don’t mind it.”

“As long as I come back to you, right?” Anne said, fast to mask the quiver.

Jack shifted behind her onto one arm and looked down at her in the dark. “Do you not _want_ to come back to me?”

Anne breathed deeply once, then twice, before she was able to meet Jack’s gaze. She could only see the outline of his face, where his eyes should be. “I don’t want to go to Mexico.”

“Well, where _do_ you want to go? The Grand Canyon?”

 _“ No,"_ said Anne, feeling desperate. “I don’t know. Fuck. Nowhere. I want to go nowhere.”

“I don’t understand.” He also sounded desperate. “You want to keep robbing banks, by the skin of our teeth, sleeping on the cold ground,  until we’re finally caught and killed?”

Maybe if he’d asked her that question in daylight, after a fight or a successful job, her blood raised, her guns hot -- she could have said with conviction the answer was yes. But there in the dark she knew nothing. So she said nothing.

“You want a life that’ll keep you near Max,” Jack said softly. It should have been a question, but he didn’t say it that way.

Anne shook her head. “It ain’t like that. Me and her, it’s different from me and you.”

“Different how?”

“She belongs only to me, just like how I belong only to you. It’s different.”

Jack didn’t speak, didn’t move. She could feel his eyes on her, and it didn’t make her feel warm the way it usually did. “You belong only to me,” he said, his voice flat, hard. Cold.

He’d found her on that train, and she would be forever in his debt for what he made her, without ever realizing he’d done it. He kept her human, allowed her to feel things other than hatred. He gave her direction and love and a job to do. She never mentioned it for all these years, because how can you talk to someone about how much you owe them, when it was _everything?_ Anne wasn’t the talker of the two of them, anyway. She’d tried her best to say it in other ways over two decades, and she tried to think of a way to say it now.

But before she could think of it, Jack said, “If you don’t think I’m _yours_ as much as you are mine, then maybe we should part ways after all.” He threw himself back down onto his bedroll, and turned away from her.

Anne let him. It wasn’t the same at all. He smelled like whiskey and more campfire smoke, and she felt sick with it. It seemed to be clogging her throat, smothering her lungs, drying up her tongue -- which was just as well. She still didn’t know what to say.

* * *

 

_September 11, 1875_

 

They would be crossing over into Colorado soon, and all around them the flat, dry lands were only broken up by orange rock formations, jutting out of the ground like church spires. Silver had spent the last few years of his life out in the West, but he’d grown up in cities, where the buildings pressed down on you while themselves growing taller every day. He still wasn’t used to the size of the sky out here. Even when it was a cloudless, a listless blue, with an unforgiving sun or spotted with the swoop of patient vultures -- the wide open sky was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“I need to take a piss,” said the second most beautiful, behind him, pulling their horse up short. The rest of the Walrus Gang followed.

They were stopped along a thick line of rock. Flint dismounted without another word and walked away for some privacy. Now, without the sound of trotting hooves, Silver heard it -- running water.

“I think I hear a stream,” Silver said, sliding off the horse as gracefully as he could manage. He’d gotten pretty good at is over the last five days. If this all didn’t work out for him and he was forced to go back into the business, he thought he could work it into his act. “I’m dying for a wash. I’m not made for this lifestyle, even if that makes me a -- what did you call me the other day, Billy?”

“Panty-waist,” said Billy.

“That’s the one.”

Everyone else had come down of their horses too, although only Vane and Jack went off to presumably relieve themselves as well. Anne held the reins of their horse, watching Jack go silently. It had been obvious the two had gotten into a fight, but Flint said that tended to happen every so often, and they’d right themselves soon enough. Two days later, however, they were still cold with each other. Anne had taken to sleeping outside, keeping Vane company.

“We’re only stopping for a moment,” Billy said with a groan, stretching widely over his head. “You don’t have time for a wash.”

“I only need a moment,” Silver insisted, wandering towards the sound of water, behind the great streak of rock.

The ground tilted downward, not quite a valley, with weeds and brush sticking out like the wiry hairs of the mad, or the dead. The stream was more of a crack in the earth, no wider than two feet, most likely from rainwater than any real water source. Though warmed by the late afternoon sun, it was still clear and refreshing. Silver felt like he was covered in a thick layer of dust, which made him feel like an old, unmissed thing. He kicked off his boots and stepped into the water. It only reached the middle of his calves, but he’d been taught as a boy: clean feet and clean hands were the fastest way to a clean heart and a clean mind.

Which was bullshit, of course, but it still felt good, washing away the grit between the webbing of his toes and in the cracks of his palms.

He bent down to splash some of the water on his face, wishing, not for the first time, these fucking handcuffs would disappear so he could have a proper wash.

“What the fuck are you doing?” said a voice behind him. “We need to get moving.”

Silver turned to Flint and once again marveled at the sight of him. SIlver hadn’t felt this strongly towards another person, perhaps in his entire life. It wasn’t that he was handsome, though he absolutely was, with the green eyes and the freckles he suspected covered all of him and that _hair_ . Jesus, now Silver understood why the great artists always painted the devil _red_. And it wasn’t just because he was clearly interested whenever Silver couldn’t help but throw an innuendo his way, though Flint of course attempted to deny it. And it wasn’t that Flint was Silver’s shining, golden key to a small fortune and a new life for himself, although that did make him incredibly appealing too, Silver had to admit.

God help him, Silver actually enjoyed _talking_ to the man. It was unheard of. Silver had a method to his madness, a way of working people to get the most out of them. Sometimes it made him silent, watchful, letting other men tell them what he needed to hear, but the Walrus Gang was too quiet and guarded for that to be effective. But the more he talked, the bigger effort people make to consciously ignore him while dropping their guards enough, or reluctantly engage with him, which was also in some ways revealing.

Flint, though. Whenever he spoke to Silver, he found himself excited to hear it without looking for something he could use against him. Whenever he spoke to Silver, it was always heated, either because he was angry or because of something else, and it made Silver _burn_. Sometimes Silver wanted Flint to speak just to feel that smoky breath on the back of his neck.

“Oh, good, you’re here,” Silver held out his hands. “Would you mind? I’d like to do this properly.”

“Yes,” said Flint, folding his arms. “I do mind.”

“Honestly,” said Silver, exasperated. “While I’m flattered the dreaded Captain Flint finds me so fearsome, I assure you. I’m only lethal with a gun in my hand. My fighting skills are average at best.”

“Is that the story of how you lost your eye?” Flint asked, genuinely curious.

“It’s one of them,” Silver said with a smile.

Flint still hadn’t moved closer. “You do know it’s going to rain later,” he said.

Silver looked up at the cloudless sky. “I’ll take my chances. Look.” He pointed. “You’re standing right beside my boots. I’m not likely to run anywhere.” He aimed low. “Please?”

Flint rolled his eyes, but approached him, stopping at the edge of the creek. He reached inside his jacket, but as he pulled out the key for the handcuffs a small book fell out of his pocket. Silver was, in complete truth, the fastest hands in the country, and caught it mid-air.

“What’s this?” He opened a page and only read a passage before it was snatched away: _the beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their long hair, Little streams pass’d all over their bodies._ “Is that pornography?”

“It’s _poetry,_ ” Flint snarled, shoving it back into his jacket. He grabbed Silver’s hands roughly and unlocked one cuff, letting them dangle from his left arm. Flint’s fingers absently traced the raw patch around his right wrist for a second too long, before taking two steps back.

Silver sighed for at least three reasons, and he couldn’t decide what was more annoying, that Flint had stopped touching him or that he’d left the handcuffs partly on. He stripped off his shirt and his undershirt, draping them on a rock, and crouched down to wet his chest. He wasn’t completely lying when he said he was harmless without a gun, but he definitely would have found a way to kill for a bar of soap.

As he washed under his arms, Flint said, loudly, “This isn’t happening.”

Silver looked at him out the corner of his eye. Flint’s gaze was firmly locked on Silver’s chest. Silver smirked, continued to pour water over himself, letting it trickle down his back. “I think you’d find that it is. You should join me, you’re filthy.”

“Whatever it is you’re trying to do here --”

“--Bathe?”

“--to me, it’s not going to happen.”

“Why, Captain. What am I doing to you?”

Flint lowered his head, the brim of his hat darkening his face. “You know, usually when other people call me that, they tend to sound frightened.”

Silver stood up, drops of water rolling down his stomach, wetting the top of his trousers. He took a step towards Flint, one foot still in the creek.

“And how do I sound?” he said lowly, tilting his head down to see Flint’s eyes.

“Like a little shit,” said Flint, and his eyes were bright and heated. But then he said, “Which is why this isn’t happening.”

Silver was a little surprised to hear Flint talking so openly about it, to be honest. It was the kind of the thing men were hanged for, but Silver supposed that might not be something Flint had any fear of. Unconsciously, his eyes dropped to Flint’s neck for a second, but his bandana hid any outward sign. He meant to look back at Flint’s eyes but he got stuck for a moment on his lips.

“Well, if we’re actually _talking_ about this,” said Silver, gazing at the ridiculous copper light in Flint’s beard. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust you,” said Flint simply. “I think you’ll do anything to make sure I don’t kill you when all this is over.”

“That’s a little unfair.” Silver frowned. “I obviously can’t deny that. Yes, of course, I don’t want to die. But, quite separately, I do want to fuck you.”

Flint’s gaped a little at that, and Silver felt fortunate enough to still be looking there when it happened. But then Flint stepped back several feet and practically growled, “Put your fucking shirt back on.”

Silver sighed again, but did as ordered. He was still wet, and the shirt, still coated with dirt, only made him feel worse. As he shoved his boots back on, he wondered at himself. Attempting anything with Flint was an unnecessary risk in an already risky situation. He should leave it alone, forget the thought ever entered his mind. Shut up and start figuring out the best way to get out of this with his money and his life.

Flint had started smoking again, and when Silver started to pass him he reached out and grabbed Silver by the wrist, pulled him closer, and it was like a tornado had kicked up right around his spine, a twister of red smoke curling around the base of him, and he was pitching forward, uprooted.

Flint snapped the handcuff back over his right wrist, smirking around his cigarette.

Silver huffed. “Has anyone ever told you, you’re kind of a tease?”

Flint inhaled deeply, let out the smoke through his nose, and pushed Silver back to the others.

It was some time later, after they’d eaten, when it began to rain.

They’d made their camp that evening inside a large sandstone outcropping. It curved inward, with a wide break on one side, and it gave the illusion of a real room, despite the lack of ceiling, which would have been really fucking appreciated at the moment. It was just Vane and Silver sitting out beside the remnants of the fire. Silver had been trying to sleep on the softest patch of ground he could find when the sky opened up on them. The paleness of the heavy clouds made everything light enough to see, but as though it were all made of shadow, purple and unreal.

He sat up and looked at Vane, who seemed completely unbothered to be suddenly drenched.

“Is this what you do, then?” Silver asked loudly over the pounding of the water. “Just sit out here and soak?”

Vane shrugged. He looked Silver up and down, and apparently decided the chances of Silver running off in the middle of the night were slim. He stood up, and made his way over to Billy’s tent.

Which was -- interesting.

But that only left one other tent available to share.

Silver trotted over to Flint’s and stooped down to look inside the opening.

Flint was still awake. He had a lantern lit and was reclining on his bedroll, socked feet crossed, using his jacket as a pillow. His hat was off and his hair loose, curling around his ears. He was reading from that small pornography book and he looked incredibly dry and inviting.

Until he looked up at Silver and scowled. “What?”

Silver dripped. “Hi.”

_“What.”_

“It’s raining,” said Silver.

“I told you so.”

Silver rolled his eyes. “Truly, you are amazing. Are you going to invite me inside or what?”

Flint said nothing, but he slowly closed his book and set it aside.

“Oh come on!” Silver shivered slightly. “I’ll catch my death out here before we ever even get to the money.”

Flint blinked at him. “Where’s Vane?”

“He’s in Billy’s tent.”

Flint quirked his eyebrows at that but said nothing still, staring at Silver like he was waiting for him to either present a more compelling argument or leave.

“Please? I sleep like the dead. I won’t disturb you.”

“You disturb me all the time.”

Silver responded with the saddest face he could make and continued to drip.

Flint sighed. “Fine.” He shifted to one side of the tent. “You know you’re not nearly as endearing as you think you are.”

Silver, though, knew this was a complete lie, but since Flint was doing him a favor he declined to mention it.

He scooted in on his knees and held out his hands towards Flint, smiling widely.

Flint stared at him. “No fucking way.”

Silver took off his hat and hit him with the sad face again, holding it over his heart. “Come on. I just want to take off the jacket, it’s soaked through. You can put them back on afterwards. I’ve almost gotten used to sleeping in them now.”

Flint sat up suddenly. It wasn’t a large tent, intended for just one person, and though they’d spent the last five days very much in each other’s space, they weren’t ever facing each other like this. Silver’s heart thudded like rain hitting rock.

“Close your eye,” Flint said quietly.

Silver did so immediately, and the sudden lack of sight made him more aware of the chill in the air. Light tremors racked his body. He heard Flint rooting around in his things, looking for a key he didn’t want Silver to find, and then suddenly there was a click of one cuff coming undone again.

“You may not rest lightly, but I do. Try _anything_ and you’ll learn how deep you can sleep,” said Flint, further away from him. Silver guessed he was hiding the key again. “Go on then.”

Silver didn’t open his eye. He took off his jacket and then, after a moment’s hesitation, his shirt as well, blindly dropping them both by the entrance of the tent. The undershirt was thin but dry, and would be marginally more comfortable to sleep in. Wordlessly, he held out his hands, and still unseeing, he felt Flint cuff him again. And because he couldn’t see, he felt just how long Flint’s hands lingered on him before dragging themselves away.

He breathed once and opened his eye. It was darker than it had been a moment ago, and he blinked against it. Flint had blown out his light and was lying down on his side of the tent.

The left side of the tent.

“Oh,” said Silver. “Uh -- nevermind.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing, really. Goodnight. Thanks again.”

They lay in the darkness beside each other, neither of them asleep. Silver was tense, listening hard to everything and trying not to. It didn’t matter. It was dark. It was too dark to see anything anyway. There was a murderer in his blind spot but it was dark so what did it matter?

A hand touched his elbow and Silver jumped. He felt rather than saw Flint pause before removing his hand. Then suddenly a heavy, scratchy blanket dropped down on his chest, making him jump even more.

“Your shivering,” whispered Flint, “is disturbing me.”

Silver hadn’t even realized, but as he awkwardly shifted the woolen blanket over him with his joined hands, the warmth and the weight of it spread over him quickly, and his heart slowed down just enough for him to fall asleep. It was a deep sleep, just like he promised.

____

Silver awoke with a blink. The canvas above him shuddered as light drops of rain hit it, but he could tell dawn was near. Everything inside the tent was awash in faded blue light, and James Flint was sat up and looking down at him.

The blanket had fallen off of Silver in the night, and he felt his nipples harden in the cool morning air. His handcuffed hands sat in the center of his chest, rising and falling as he breathed. He stared at the silhouette of Flint, the dimness leaving only the impression of his features, nothing telling of his expression.

Flint was leaning on one arm, his other hand resting on his own stomach, and he kept looking down at Silver. When they’d fallen asleep the night before there had been at least half a foot distance between them, but now they right next to each other. Neither of them said anything, and Silver wondered if Flint could even tell he was awake.

And then Flint’s other hand came down on Silver’s other side, and he was hovering inches over Silver. His head moved lower but stopped abruptly, so Silver grabbed the front of his shirt with two hands and pulled him down completely.

The kiss was softer than Silver was expecting, their lips dry from the night air. Flint’s nose nuzzled against Silver’s as he tilted his head slightly, the faintest flicker of tongue stroking Silver’s bottom lip quickly, like walking too close to a flame, and Silver opened his mouth with a moan.

One of Flint’s hands cupped the back of Silver’s head, the other pressing down on Silver’s stomach. He inhaled sharply through his nose and slid his tongue against Silver’s as he slotted his thigh between his legs. Silver’s hip rose to rub against him, even and slow. He felt no need to rush. Flint’s mouth tasted of stale tobacco and Silver yearned for it, angling his head deeper, found a way and sucked on Flint’s tongue.

Flint groaned into his mouth, fingers pulling on Silver’s hair tight. He leaned back, and they breathed hard into each other, before using that same hand to pull Silver’s head back, exposing his throat. Flint’s mouth trailed across his stubbled jaw, over the bob in his throat, his teeth dragging.

“Oh,” Silver gasped. _"Oh,"_ he gasped again, as he felt Flint pulling at his fly.

Flint released Silver’s hair as he moved lower, pushing up his shirt to bite at Silver’s stomach while he worked Silver’s cock out of his pants. It felt hotter than normal in Flint’s hand against the early morning air. Flint had his hand wrapped underneath, cupping his balls. He pressed an open kiss against the side of the head, his tongue pulsing against the soft skin.

He didn’t put it in his mouth though, not yet. Instead Flint kissed all the way along Silver’s cock, from tip to base, wet and heavy, coating Silver and his balls and Flint’s hand in saliva. It didn’t have time to cool, Flint all over him in a perfect heat.

“Fuck.” Silver curled up, his shoulders off the ground, both hands going to Flint’s hair. " _Fuck_ , oh Christ, _Flint,_ please.”

Flint finally put the head into his mouth and sucked hard, and Silver fell backwards, his back arching off the floor as he groaned loudly before he could bite down on his lip to silence himself. His hips rose and fell in short bursts, overwhelmed and without rhythm now. Flint hummed around him, swallowing him down bit by bit, and that was when Silver felt it. Breathing hard, his lifted his head as much as he could, to watch Flint suck his cock, straddling Silver’s left leg. It was outstretched beneath him and Flint was mindlessly rubbing himself on Silver’s boot, as frantic as Silver felt. The sun had continued to rise and the inside of the tent only got lighter, so Silver could see Flint’s face now, his eyes bright and hungry as he stared up at Silver.

“Flint, I’m --” Silver was shattering, his grip on Flint’s perfect hair too tight. “Fuck, oh fuck, I’m close, _oh_ \--”

Flint held onto his hips as Silver came with as quiet a groan as he could manage, body bent forward over Flint, still clutching at the back of his head. He shuddered as Flint swallowed it all, his tongue gently running along the underside of his cock, soothing, before letting him drop from his mouth.

“I can -- ” Silver panted into Flint’s hair. “Let me take care of you.” He started to untangle his hands from Flint’s hair and as they did the chinks of his handcuffs clanked loudly against each other, right beside Flint’s ear.

Flint breathed into his stomach once  before he pulled away from Silver’s hands, and then pulled away from him completely. His face was flushed, his lips shining. But his eyes were not happy. They were as cold as the morning air, which felt even colder as Flint grabbed his hat, boots, and jacket, crawled out of the tent and disappeared.

Silver sat, blinking, his cock still wet in his lap. “Um.”

After a moment he realized Flint wasn’t coming back, and he fell backwards onto the ground, trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. With a deep sigh, he tucked himself back into his pants and sat up again. He saw he had a few strands of auburn hair wrapped around his fingers.

When he finally stepped out into the camp, everyone else was awake and folding up their belongings. The rain was only a light drizzle now. He tried not to shiver and feel like an idiot, standing there with his hat on and no shirt. Flint and Vane were gone, along with their horses. Silver awkwardly held onto his clothes as Billy approached him, holding the key to the handcuffs.

“Where did Flint go?” he asked immediately, and winced at his tone.

Billy shrugged, unlocking the cuffs. “Rode ahead with Vane, making sure nothing happened in the night.”

Silver started to relax a little as he pulled on his shirt and jacket, until Billy said, “You’re riding with me today anyway.”

Silver blinked. “What? Why?”

“Flint said his horse needs a break from the weight,” said Billy, locking the cuffs again. “Come on, help me pack up his tent.”

Before he moved to help, Silver took the strands of hair, wound around his index finger still, a bright red even with a sunless sky, and tucked it into his jacket pocket.

But as he rolled up the tent, having gone over the morning a few hundred times in his mind, Silver couldn't stop the smile that rose on his face.

Captain James Flint had sucked him off and then ran away.

Flint thought he could avoid Silver for the rest of their journey, but he’d been unable to do that before, and Silver hadn't even been _trying_ then.

He adjusted the strap of his eyepatch above his ear and straightened his hat. Silver had been described many ways by all walks of life, but he thought they’d all agree: _unavoidable_ definitely topped the list.

* * *

 

_July 17, 1859_

 

_Billy stood on the ground, and his daddy stood on the platform with the other men. Even though everyone else was sweating in the blistering Georgian heat, his daddy was not. He was also the only one without a bag on his head, so everyone in the crowd could see he was only white man up there._

_Because he was the only white man, though, it meant he got to go first._

_An officer stood behind Billy, two hands on his shoulders keeping him in place, but Billy had nowhere to run anyway. His only people were up on that platform. He had no one else._

_Another officer was reading aloud his daddy’s crimes, but Billy didn’t listen because he already knew what they were. He’d helped him, after all. And besides, his daddy was speaking to him, too._

_“You be brave, William,” said his daddy as a man in black looped the noose around his neck. “You keep fighting them, boy, you hear?”_

_“--charges of theft, arson, property damage, inciting anarchy, instigating a riot --”_

_“You remember how I showed you to fight, son?” his daddy said fiercely. “You remember it all. If this is the worst they can do to you, you ain’t got no cause to worry. It ain’t nothing up here.”_

_“-- leading an unlawful rebellion on the Mercer plantation, resulting in the loss of property to one Daniel Mercer --_

_“Men!” his daddy shouted. “Women! Children!” The crowd booed, jeered at him, hurling rotten fruit and him and the other men on the platform._

_BIlly remembered how his daddy taught him to fight, lessons learned in dimly lit rooms in secret, rooms used to plan revolutions. Billy knew it: you fought one blow at a time. Hit ‘em enough, keep hitting, because you never know which one could be the final one to knock ‘em down for good._

_“--for these crimes you have been sentenced by the state of Georgia to hang from the neck until dead.” The officer finished his proclamation and stepped away from the platform. The man in black stood by the lever._

_“You mind all I said, son,” said his daddy, standing straight and tall, his hands tied behind his back. “You keep --”_

_“Aw, hell,” said the officer behind Billy. “He ain’t gonna have much time to mind you, seeing as we’re killing him next.”_

_Billy felt the cold steel of a gun barrel against his temple, and he tried to stand upright too. He kept his eyes on the platform, heart pounding, trying to look brave like his daddy. Like he said, it ain’t nothing._

_Except his daddy didn’t look brave anymore. Now he just looked terrified._

_“Wait! You said he wouldn’t be harmed. You can’t--”_

_The ground disappeared beneath him, cutting him off. Billy jerked under the officer’s grip but was held tight, unable to look away from his daddy’s face as he swung._

_Then readied himself, waiting for the bullet to enter his skull. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t be afraid. The metal felt hot already against his skin and he kept his eyes on his daddy as he waited for the bullet._

_But then the gun was removed from his head, and the officer behind him laughed._

_“Relax, boy. We ain’t gonna kill you. Your pa was just a little too uppity. Nothing quite like a man going to meet his maker with real fear in his heart.”_

_Billy didn’t say anything. He didn’t cry. A lot of men swung in the summer breeze that morning, and his daddy was just one of them._

_The officer grabbed him again by his shoulders, spun him around, and put him in handcuffs. Billy wouldn’t get them off for another seven years._

____

_September 13, 1875_

 

They managed to outrun the storm for two days, the low black clouds lingering in the south as they rode. But then in an afternoon, Billy looked up and there they were, pregnant and angry, hanging directly overhead.

It was good fortune that Vane, riding a little ahead, spotted the abandoned barn a few miles to the north. It was out of their way but safer than trying to weather it inside their thin tents, completely exposed.

The barn wasn’t near any kind of civilization, and Billy wondered what kind of life could be lived out this way, but then there were plenty of signs to say there hadn’t been much kind of life at all here. It looked like the barn hadn’t been used at least since the war, and the ground surrounding the dilapidated building was littered with cattle remains, bleached bones picked bare years ago. A sign had been carved into a piece of wood and nailed into the only tree on the property. It simply said: A SICKNESS. Billy didn’t see any human remains, though, so whatever the history here, it might not have been that evil.

It was as dark as night outside, though the hour was not yet four. They settled their horses inside a stall and then everyone set out exploring a different corner of the barn. Everyone had been oddly silent the last couple days and it wasn’t just anxiety about the storm.

Billy tried not to care whenever anything was brewing between Jack and Anne, and he really, _really_ did not care about whatever weirdness was going on with Flint and Silver. He cared about their wellbeing as his crew, he’d die to protect any of them, and even Silver was beginning to grow on him a little (much like mold), but their relationship drama mattered little to him. And he knew this journey had an edge of finality to it. Billy wasn’t a nostalgic creature. He had never said an actual goodbye to anyone, and he didn’t think he was about to start now.

He would be sad to see them go, though some more than others.

He stepped outside the barn and walked around, sticking close to the walls, and he wasn’t surprised to see Vane standing out there already. Billy assumed he’d checked the surrounding perimeter, but now he stood beneath the overhang of the roof, cupping his hands against the wind as he lit a match.

Vane’s long hair whipped around his face, like it was a storm on its own. Billy was still watching him when Vane caught sight of him, those eyes and the burning end of his cigar the only visible sources of light in the false-evening of the thunderstorm.

He quirked his lips a little and cocked his head back, and Billy hadn’t been waiting for an invitation but he didn’t mind accepting one. He crowded beside Vane beneath the overhang. The rain had only just started, still a faint prickling on his skin like soft needles.

Vane inhaled his cigar deeply, then held it out for Billy to take. Billy usually chewed his tobacco, but he took it wordlessly. It smelled like something forgotten deep in the heart of him, and the tip was already wet when he put it to his lips.

He only coughed a little. “Everyone is acting very strange,” he said. “I’m guessing you noticed that.”

Vane shrugged, taking back the cigar. He shot Billy a look that said: _When are they not?_

Which was -- true. They were a weird gang, to be sure. Other outlaws would follow one leader without thought, take their prizes wherever they could, regardless who it hurt, who they killed. But though Flint led them, if one of them had a complaint they could voice it without fear of being cast out or killed. They tried to take money only from those who had it in spades. Not to mention they also ran with a woman.

It was the only outfit Billy had ever ran with, and he suspected that they might not be an easy one to replace.

“Was Silver right, then?” Billy asked suddenly. “The other night? You’re going to give away your share?”

Vane looked away then, out onto the darkened fields. He shrugged again, but differently this time, a little uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” Billy agreed. “I’m annoyed I didn’t think of it first, too.”

Vane punched him in the shoulder. He hit like a sledgehammer, but Billy was a big man and so he only stumbled a little.

Billy laughed a little, rubbing his shoulder, and then plucked the cigar from Vane’s fingers. Vane let him. Billy mulled over the idea, like he had since Silver had jokingly suggested it. It was good. Keeping some of the money to stay fed, giving the rest of it away to orphans or poor townspeople or something. Keep thieving -- stealing from fat bankers, rich majors, crooked businessmen. They could give that money away, too. They could be like that story Silver told, a couple of thieves trying to even out all the imbalances.

If Vane wanted to join him.

“You know, my daddy wanted me to be a lawyer. Or a politician.” Billy snorted. “Actually, I think he wanted me to be the next Lincoln. Thought I had it in me to change the world, I guess.” He inhaled another cloud of black smoke, held it on his tongue like a memory, before letting it go. “Except he couldn’t wait for me to grow up and do it, so he tried to do it himself, and got himself killed for it. The bitch of it is, six years later, they abolished what he was fighting against, and I was still in chains for it. And he was still buried a criminal.”

Vane was staring at him, eyebrows raised. It wasn’t often Vane made a face like that -- he was a hard man to surprise. Billy smiled slightly. “I never told about my daddy, have I?” Vane shook his head, just once.

Flint had been recruiting men in large quantities years back, impassioned and full of rage at something, and Billy had been a drunk and an escaped convict and a decent shooter. Flint had welcomed him, no questions asked, but told him they had enough drunks in their outfit so to pull himself the fuck together. Flint didn’t care why he drank, Billy had never asked why Flint fought, and everyone else kept to the same code. There had been about two dozen members of the Walrus Gang back then, raising Hell all over the Plains, but now they were the only ones who remained.

“He wasn’t a criminal,” Billy said. He hadn’t thought directly about his daddy in years. “He only broke laws he saw were already broken. Flint reminds me of him sometimes.” As soon as he said it, he realized it was true. “Too damn impatient, too fucking stubborn. They made the mistake of believing in something, whatever it was.”

The winds rose higher now, the old barn creaking dangerously behind them. It would be just likely, for the roof of their safe haven to come crashing down on all of them.

But the strong gusts swept downward opposite where they stood, mostly blocked by the barn, so it just whipped them lightly at the sides. Still, Billy mistook it for the wind at first when Vane placed a hand on his wrist, his thumb running just so over Billy’s knuckles.

Billy looked down at their hands. Thunder rumbled close by, and he felt it in his gut. Vane kept looking at him, his cigar at his lips and smoking.

“I killed the man who hanged him,” Billy said, voice rough. It might’ve been too low, with the wind, but he knew Vane was listening. “It took awhile to find him. I never paused in it, not even in the act. And afterwards... I’d been chained to other men for years, and I thought I wanted to be alone forever. But I think I don’t want that either. I think you changed that. I mean, you all,” Billy added quickly. “The gang. You all made me see I could make the choice to be a person. And I dunno if I’m ready to be a thing again.”

He took the cigar back and turned to watch the storm. Vane still held his hand. Dust rose from everywhere, tiny twisters kicking up and coating their skin. Thunder and lightning matched paces, dancing in the sky, holding onto each other fast, making the deep purple clouds roll like waves. He always got a thrill, standing in the midst of a storm. It was like being in a fight with Heaven.

“I like talking to you, Vane. It’s like talking to God. I don’t expect an answer, but I don’t always need one.” He looked at Vane just as a particularly bright flash of light hit his face. “Although I suppose God has other ways of answering.”

Vane cupped the back of his neck, pulled him down, and kissed him.

Once, Billy had been working a field as a summer storm blew in, all of a sudden. A bolt of lightning had struck another man’s pickaxe as he’d held it aloft. It must have traveled through him, through the metal chains around his ankles, into the four other men tied to him. It struck so suddenly, and in an instant the air was filled with the strong scent of fire and burning meat, and the men were all gone before they’d even realized themselves they were dead. The shock kept them upright until a guard came along and pushed them over. Their faces were frozen into something that wasn’t death and it wasn’t fear, but Billy had seen they’d clearly felt _something_ as they went. When they’d been thrown into a cart and wheeled away, Billy had seen the soles of their shoes had melted away.

Vane pulled back, his hand still on Billy’s neck but not as tight, looking apprehensive. So Billy dropped the cigar, bent down and kissed him again.

He had that same forgotten taste. His lips were cool, and when he opened his mouth his tongue was cool, too. For a moment Billy didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he went to mimic Vane and ended up cradling his face, his jaw sharper than a razor against his palm. Vane pushed against him, his whole body as sharp as the rest of him, and Billy felt his stomach flip like maybe they had been picked up by the storm after all.

He leaned back, but not too far, and they breathed heavily into each other. “Wait--” said Billy, panting. “I’m not -- I don’t --” He didn’t know how to say it. But he’d _seen_ Vane with women, seen him with Eleanor Guthrie, even after their relationship had already ended. And even if he hadn’t, he’d seen Vane fight, seen him kill, and that was almost the same. Vane was all hard, demanding passion and Billy didn’t have a clue how to match it. “I--”

Vane kissed him again, close-mouthed and intent, before taking a step back. His hand had drifted to his shoulder, thumb rubbing the skin beside his collar. His eyes were bright, clear, and Billy didn’t get how anyone ever had a hard time understanding him.

Then he disappeared, getting onto the floor, and Billy’s mind went white in panic for a second, but then Vane tugged on his hand, pulling him down with him. They sat together, side by side, knees up, backs against the barn, watching the storm roll in.

* * *

 

Collectively they found inside the barn: four splintering chairs, three broken crates, a few moldy barrels of hay, some empty grain sacks and empty rye bottles, a guitar with a missing string, a bird’s nest, a rusted frying pan, and the rotting skeleton of some kind of animal. Possibly a prairie dog.

Anne had also found, hidden up in the unsteady loft, an old bible. The spine was frail and cracked, as whole sections of it had been torn from the bindings. Flipping through it, she saw someone had ripped out all of “Exodus” and “Revelations.” It had left her feeling a little unsettled about the barn and the storm, but she thought Jack would find the bible interesting. She’d pocketed it, deciding to give it to him later.

If he was speaking to her.

She leaned now against the wide open doors of the barn, watching thick sheets of rain fall about a mile off, blurring the horizon. It was moving fast. Jack, who liked to read into things too much, would often call storms like this _harbingers_ , prophesying death, destruction, and doom. Usually they just brought a fuckton of mud and mild illness (although when it befell Anne there was nothing mild about, even the smallest head cold meant she was dying and she would bring the world down with her).

But this storm felt different. Or maybe that was everything. It was all off-kilter, all wrong. But that tower of rain barreling down on them looked to Anne like a curtain, obscuring something.

It was the kind of notion Jack would have voiced, and she wished he would, so she could tell him it was utter bullshit.

Behind her, Jack and Silver had commandeered two chairs and a crate, and they had started a game of cards. They were pointedly not betting, but were deliberately, obviously cheating, so blatant about it it had become less of a game and more of a showing of skills.

“What are you doing?”

“I -- fuck, I think it’s caught on a button inside my sleeve.”

“No, it’s not, look, you’re going up the wrong arm. I can see an Ace poking out right there.”

“Who the fuck taught you how to shuffle cards? Would you prefer to just lay them face up, makes it much easier to slowly arrange the suits.”

Jack had quickly forgiven Silver for humiliating him during their first encounter, which Anne thought had more to to do with Jack’s personality than Silver’s. Jack wasn’t mean. Sure, he sinned without guilt. He drank, he stole, he gambled. She’d seen him brawl with sheer joy in his eyes, and she’d seen him kill without pity or remorse. But he wasn’t _mean._ He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t hold grudges.

Unless it was against her, apparently.

Sure, they’ve _talked_. It was hard to share a horse without speaking. But nothing involving their fight around the others. She’d tried the next night, pulling him away from their camp before the sun had set, thinking it might be easier if he could see her face, but it had been just as bad as before.

“Would you stop bringing her up? I told you, it ain’t the same with Max,” Anne had insisted. “You see me differently than she does.”

“And how do you think I see you?” Jack had asked angrily. “You think I don’t love you the same?”

“Not enough to go hide out on some fucking beach for the rest of your life,” Anne had said, equally angry. “Just because you think that’s what I fucking want.”

“And what, exactly, is it you _do_ fucking want?” Jack had snarled. “Other than Max, of course.”

“Leave her the fuck out of it! It ain’t the fucking same! I don’t owe her the way I owe you.”

And Jack’s face had shut down completely, and he didn’t say another word for the rest of the night to anyone.

Anne _didn’t_ know what she wanted, except she actually did. She wanted Jack. She wanted Max. She wanted to never arrive in Colorado. Deep in the black center of her mind, she wanted them to find nothing but an empty hole in the mountains.

But when she’d tried to explain that, that first night it had rained and she’d crept back into their tent, trying to get him to understand how she wanted everything to be the _same,_ she’d fucked it up once again.

“I’m a fuckin’ gun, Jack.” She had been crying, but fortunately she was also wet from the rain and they were only frustrated tears, anyway. “I don’t know how to be anything else. You wanna go off and be someone important, run some shitheel town, or write a book and get yourself famous. What the fuck can I do? Be your bodyguard? Be your _wife?_ ”

“What would be so bad” -- Jack had also been crying, just a little -- “about being my wife?”

But the word just reminded her of her mother, which reminded her of her father. It was a poisonous word, and she’d spat, “I won’t be your fucking wife, Jack.”

And Jack had said, “Well, maybe I want to be your fucking _husband,_ Anna."

She flinched at the name. “What’s the fucking difference?” Which had been the wrong thing to say, too.

Christ, Anne _ached_ for Jack. She’d never, not in the twenty years they’d been together, gone this long without touching him. The biggest stretch of time was when Jack had been arrested for stealing from a church donation box, and he’d been locked up three days before she could bust him out. Even when they’d only been kids, they’d always been holding onto each other, either with their hands or the whole of themselves.

It was almost surprising to Anne, how desperately she wanted to go to him now, to crawl into his lap and bury her face into his neck, where he still smelled slightly of aftershave even though they’d been in the fucking bush for over a week and none of them had time to shave. It was how she felt when she was near (but not near enough) to Max, except that was a chronic pain in her gut, a constant turmoil. But this was acute, sharp, like a punch right to her sternum that never faded.

“What d’you say we make this interesting?” said Silver behind her. She looked over her shoulder and he had an eight of diamonds stuck to his forehead. They had in the meantime lit a few lanterns, and the barn now looked like the center of the Earth.

“Absolutely not,” said Jack, glaring beneath a two of hearts. “Besides, I know you have no money.”

“I’ll wager half my share of Vasquez’s fortune.”

“No f-- _half?_ ”

Flint cleared his throat, eyeing them from over that small book he always read. He was sitting in a chair with his feet propped on a crate. He wasn’t close enough to look like he was sitting with them but he wasn’t far enough he couldn’t eavesdrop.

 _“ Excuse_ me, Captain, this is a private transaction between two sober gentlemen,” said Silver, smiling slyly at Flint. “Just go back to reading your pornography.”

Flint was mostly obscured in shadows, but it wasn’t dark enough to hide the red coloring the tips of his ears. “Whether or not you actually _get_ a share is still up in the air, as I may still end up killing you after we get it.”

Silver just smiled wider, shuffling the cards through the air expertly, and Jack said, “While I don’t believe at this point your death is very _probable,_ I still find it at least _possible,_ so I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”

 _“Possible,_ ” Flint said after a moment, before returning to his book.

The storm had finally arrived, and her post by the open barn door was rained out, so she retreated further inside. Billy and Vane were still out there, but she thought they were smart enough not to get struck by lightning.

She approached the last unused crate beside Flint and sat on the ground. She took off her bandana and spread it out before pulling out her gun. She began to take it apart.

She didn’t remember where she’d learned to do this. It had become second nature to her though, could rearrange the cold steel with her eyes closed. What she did remember:  the first time Jack had kissed her had been when she’d shown him how to clean a gun. His hands had smelled so strongly of gunpowder where he’d cupped her face. She remembered all the evenings she’d spent lying in a bed (when they had a bed to lie in), half sprawled on top of him in his shirt, cleaning out the barrel with a brush, and he always said the same thing, watching the thin stick go in and out of the hole: _you better stop, darling, you’re making me ready to go again._ She remembered how they’d never pointed a gun at each other, not in the score of years they’d been together, and she didn’t think anyone else in the world could say that.

“You know, if you’re going to keep staring at him like that,” said Flint softly, “you might as well forgive him.”

Anne started suddenly, looking up at him. Jack and Silver had started playing a version of 21 except the goal seemed to be to reach the other’s age instead of twenty-one, but neither would admit how old they actually were, and had started shouting at each other. Anne’s guns sat in pieces before her.

She glared at Flint, who was smirking slightly with knowing eyes. “It ain’t him that needs forgiving,” she said lowly.

Flint’s eyebrows raised in surprised. " _You_ fucked up this time?” Which was fair, but again, it was more to do with Jack’s personality than Anne’s. A wronged word in her direction was like stepping into a pit of rattlesnakes, but Jack usually let anything she said to him pass. Usually.

“First time in twenty years,” she grumbled sullenly.

From across the barn they heard, “Rot in Hell, you are _not_ fucking older than forty-five!”

“I know, right? I look unbelievable.”

They had started throwing cards at each other, attempting to cut the other with the sharp edges. They looked like a couple of goddamn kids, but Jack’s face was so unconcerned and light, it was like another punch to the chest.

She turned back to Flint just in time to see the expression on his face as he watched Silver deftly flicking the old cards. It was a look she was familiar with intimately, as she felt it on her face at that moment.

“Oh,” she said quietly, “so _that’s_ how it is.”

Flint’s gaze jerked down to her, his eyes wide. “What?”

She tilted his head towards the card game. “You, with the clown.”

“He’s not --” He stopped.

Anne smiled. Flint huffed. He closed his book.

“It’s not like that,” said Flint, and for a man who would order breakfast with passionate conviction, it sounded weak to Anne’s ears.

She brought her arms up onto the crate and placed her head down, facing Flint. The boys had stopped throwing the cards but they were all over the floor, so they were attempting to match up pairs. Although they couldn’t decide if they were matching suits or numbers, and another argument broke out.

“I know what it’s like,” Anne said, “loving a man like that.”

Flint nearly dropped his book. “I don’t _love_ him,” he hissed.

“Care for, then.”

Flint snorted. “Hardly.”

Anne rolled her eyes and said, _“Possibly_ won’t kill by the end of the week, then.”

 _“Possibly,_ ” Flint said, his teeth gritting.

But then he said, after a moment of deliberating, “What do you mean, though? What’s it like?”

Anne ducked her head a little, rubbing her cheek against the coarse material of her jacket. “Men like them,” she said. “They talk too much. Well, so the fuck do you, sometimes. But you at least know when to shut your mouth. They don’t.”

She turned to watch them, her chin resting on her crossed arms. “It’s hard work, loving them,” she continued. “Or I guess, not killing them, because we want to protect them, even if they’d hate hearing that. Even if they don’t think they need it, which means they really _do_. Wanting to protect them from all the awful fucks in the world who try and shut them up. Who’ll do anything to shut them up. And we know it’d be easier, y’know? If they wouldn’t be so loud, if they didn’t have so much to say -- it’d be safer for ‘em. But we can’t do that. Can’t ever do something like that. Can’t even wish them to be quieter, not really. Because it doesn’t take us long to realize we like listening to the sound of their voices too much.”

The barn shuddered violently as the wind howled outside. Flint’s hands around his book had turned white, and his eyes were shining, looking a little far off. But then Silver laughed at something Jack said, and his mind was brought back to him, like pulling on marionette strings. His mouth dropped open a little and Anne didn’t know he was gaping, sighing, or preparing to speak. But just then Vane and Billy came rushing in through the barn doors.

They were soaking wet, dripping all over as they both tried their best to close the rusted doors, but they’d only give a few inches. At least it blocked some of the weather.

Stripping off his wet jacket as he walked, Vane approached the card game. He leaned on Jack’s shoulder, inspecting his cards (they had started playing poker again) before rearranging a couple. He looked -- _smug._ He normally looked pretty unreadable, so it was easy to see how very proud of himself he was.

Billy, however, looked flushed, like he had already caught a fever from sitting out in the storm like an idiot. “It’s time we got a fire going.” His eyes moving restlessly around the barn, sticking to nothing. “We may as well eat before it gets too late.”

Anne got up to go help, leaving her gun in pieces on the crate, but Flint held up his hand stop her. He hadn’t gotten up from his chair yet, but he said quietly to her, “I know there’s something between you and the brothel owner at Nassau. I know Jack _seems_ to be fine with it. But if that’s the source of your conflict, there are-- I mean.” He sighed, standing up. He fiddled with his book uncomfortably as he said, “You can make that work. It’s difficult, and it’s dangerous. But sometimes, all of you-- It can. Be good. It can work.”

Anne blinked at him for a few seconds before she got what he was implying, and by then he had already stalked away from her to help get dinner started. Flint was a very private man, as they all were, but what he’d just suggested supplied her with more information than he’d given her in all the time they’d known each other. It was fucking startling.

By the time they’d finished eating, the storm hadn’t settled any, and in fact seemed right overhead. White light flashed between the cracks of the barn’s wooden beams, and they’d had to move a few of their chairs to avoid the leaky spots.

Jack, Silver, and Billy were playing Go Fish, and Billy was better at keeping them on task and honest than nothing, but it was still an uphill battle. Flint had gone back to his book, Anne back to her gun, until Vane picked up the old guitar they’d left propped along a wall.

He strummed it a couple times, tuning it a bit before it sounded relatively decent. He started playing, and it sounded so faint in the middle of the storm that everyone stopped talking to hear. At first it just seemed like random notes before Anne could make out a specific tune.

She didn’t know why she did it. Probably it had something to do with the smile Jack was shooting Vane, a kind of casual pride he only ever reserved for the two of them, like he was just _happy_ to be in their presence. It was a smile she so desperately wanted now, so when she heard Vane start the song again she began to sing.

“ _Heavily falls the rain, wild are the breezes tonight_ ,” she sang softly, still working on her gun. “ _But 'neath the roof, the hours as they fly, are happy and calm and bright_.”

She felt the others looking at her now. She’d never sang in front of anyone but Jack. There wasn’t any particular reason for that. She only ever sang for him because she knew he liked to hear it. She was afraid to look at him now, though. She was afraid he wouldn’t be smiling.

_“Gathering round our fireside,  tho' it be summer time, we sit and talk of brothers abroad, forgetting the midnight chime.”_

Flint had early speculated that Max was the source of their conflict, but Anne didn’t know how true that was. Max was either the match, the spark, or the flame. She was the first killing blow or the final one. But Flint had said something else as well. Something that could be good. It sounded too good to be true. It sounded like a magic trick, and her faith in magic had drowned with her faith in God.

 _“Brave boys are they!”_ Anne found her voice growing louder, beyond her control. She had to make sure Jack heard. “ _Gone at their country's call, and yet, and yet we cannot forget, that many brave boys must fall.”_

When she finally looked up, Jack wasn’t looking at her. His head was bowed, his eyes closed, his fists tight. Everyone else was smiling at her though, their pleasant surprise obvious, and she saw Vane’s eye fall on Jack for a moment, the stiffness of his back, but he continued to play. He shot Anne a meaningful look, urging her to do _something,_ but she didn’t know what to do other than to fix her gun and keep singing into the night.

Later on, Jack and Silver had exhausted themselves acting like jackasses and had retired early, Silver to the back of the barn as far from the horses as possible, while Jack climbed the rickety ladder to the loft. Billy and Vane went back outside to check the surrounding area again, whether for predators, lawmen, or tornadoes.

Anne watched the storm some more through the open doors, but night had well and truly fallen. It was more a sight unseen, only heard, except for the brilliant cracks of lightning. It seemed like God was lifting them up and shaking them around inside this shitty, smelly barn. It was all noise and wind, but she supposed she had to try and rest.

And with nowhere else to go,  she started to climb up the ladder.

As she reached the top of the loft she happened to see Flint approach Silver, who she could see was already asleep, his handcuffed hands pressed together beneath his face. After a moment of watching him, Flint settled in beside him, although he gave them at least a foot of distance between them.

Jack was curled up next to some hay, facing the wall. The loft was long enough to space out but she crawled down next to him, placing her hat beside his above their heads. She curved her body, knees up, not touching him, and closed her eyes. She never prayed, but she often begged silently for sleep, which she did now.

It would have likely gone unanswered, had Jack not immediately rolled over to face her. She only heard it, the lights all gone out, but she knew he was awake still. Knew it because he gently reached out, and though it was dark as the deepest of seas in there he still found her hand right away.

* * *

_They’re racing through the Black Hills when it begins to snow. It dusts the pine needles of the trees, the manes of their horses, their eyelashes, but it isn’t sticking to the ground yet, their path still brown and rocky._

_A shot rings out, but it’s aimed high. Flint ducks his head anyway, low enough on his horse to smell the sticky iron scent of the blood still coating his hands._

_More shots, but their pursuers can’t aim right, the mountain road too winding for accurate shots. He looks over his shoulder to see if Miranda has any ideas on how best to escape them._

_This is supposed to be the moment when a bullet strikes the back of her head, right when Flint is turned around. He’d see her forehead cave forward, her hat flying off, parts of her brain and her skull showering the back of her horse, dripping down the slope of her elegant face._

_But when Flint looks, Miranda and her horse are frozen in place, as still as the mountains, even though Flint could feel himself moving still, his own horse galloping at a feverish pace. Miranda’s face is already covered in her own viscera, so perhaps that’s why she’s motionless. She has nothing left to run from anymore._

_Only her lips move, but her voice is as frozen as the rest of her. But it is only one word she is trying to say, mouthing it over and over, her face unconcerned in death._

_Flint tugs on his reins, trying to stop moving, trying to turn to her fully, but his horse keeps racing, charging over the wild roads of the Black Hills, before finally running right off, barreling straight into a canyon._

____

 

_September 14, 1875_

 

Flint awoke with a gasp, his body locked up. He’d been sleeping on the ground too many nights, now. The ghost of the wound in his shoulder ached fiercely. His body seemed as brittle as an old military headstone. He felt ancient.

The barn was awash in pale light, the air that after-storm wet coolness that coats the skin. Flint listened for a moment but heard no rain. The road would be muddy and miserable, but he thought they could make to the mountains in another two days, if the weather abated.

He turned his head, and Silver was lying on his side, wide awake and staring at him.

It was a mirror of the other morning. A part of Flint desperately wished it had never happened, but, as they watched each other silently in the early morning again, he had to admit it wasn’t a very large part.

Although he was still surprised at himself for acting on his impulses. He’d spent the last decade ignoring the wants he felt, keeping them at the back of his mind like a low buzz. But the other night when they’d shared a tent, it had been so long since he’d dreamed of someone who was still alive, even longer since that person had been beside him when he woke. Silver had seemed so warm and _real_ that morning, his mouth opened a little, snoring lightly. The scar that ran down the left side of his face seemed less sharp, less defensive, in the peacefulness of his sleep. And then his eye had fluttered open, looking at Flint the way he was now, and the buzz became a roar, overwhelming him entirely.

Much like now. The tenderness in his bones suddenly seemed more a solid tremble, sturdy in a way an earthquake was, as Silver reached out with his joined hands. He traced lightly over Flint’s neck, where his scarf had loosened and slipped in the night. Silver gently ran rough fingers over his scars. Flint’s impulse was to rear back, out of reach, but he found himself mesmerized by the honest curiosity in Silver’s eyes. There was no sign of horror or pity. But then, Flint supposed he knew a thing or two about scars.

Silver’s gaze flickered back up to Flint’s face, and his fingers trailed higher, running along the bristled edge of his jaw. “We have to stop meeting like this,” Silver whispered. Flint didn’t know where the others were, but without the confines of his tent, under the high ceilings of the barn and with hands caressing his face, he’d never felt so exposed.

“If I kiss you now,” Silver said, licking his lips, “will you run away again?”

That was always going to be a possibility, but he moved towards Silver anyway, the hands on Flint’s face like a lasso pulling him in. Flint needed another taste of what had been haunting his waking hours for days. But before they could close that final inch between them, a loud whistle echoed throughout the barn.

They both jerked upright as Billy and Anne came rushing by to get their packs leaning against the wall. Then a shot fired out, and Flint saw Vane standing at the open barn doors with his rifle smoking.

“We’ve got company,” Billy said, his face grim, grabbing his ammunitions belt.

“Fuck,” said Flint, standing. “Hornigold?”

He didn’t realize his mistake until he caught Billy and Anne pausing slightly in their movements, both looking at him sharply.

“No,” said Billy slowly. “The Fancy Gang.”

Flint frowned. “Low? What the fuck are they doing here?” He grabbed his guns and approached the other side of the barn opening, Silver close behind, hands empty still. He started to look out when multiple answering bullets struck the side of the barn above their heads. They ducked as splintering shards of wood rained down on them, Flint bringing his arms up instinctively to cover them both.

The quick flurry ended as abruptly as it started, and for a moment all was still, save for the raised dust dancing in the air.

“Good morning, boys,” Ned Low called out.

Anne stepped out and got off three shots before Jack pulled her back in.

A pause, and then Flint heard Low chuckle. “And a good morning to you, Miss Bonny.”

Flint stuck his head out halfway and saw twelve members of the Fancy Gang, their silken waistcoats soiled and mud-streaked. They must have been right behind them this whole goddamn time to keep up with them before the rain washed away their tracks completely. They’d all been so fucking distracted.

“Hey, I recognize them!” said Silver, peeking out below Flint. “They heckled me during my first show in Nassau.” He scowled at Flint. “That one-eyed bastard gives a bad name to the rest of us one-eyed bastards. You should definitely shoot him.”

Flint huffed, thinking hard. The Fancy Gang had no cover out there, save for one spindly tree, and they were keeping themselves pretty far back. Presumably their intention had been to outright storm the barn before Vane had spotted them. Though they had plenty of cover inside the barn, the Walrus Gang had no escape. They were utterly trapped, the only other way out a small window in the upper loft, and that was a straight drop twenty feet down. Even if they didn’t happen to break their legs jumping out, they’d be left without their horses anyway.

“What the fuck do you want, Low?” Flint yelled, gripping his guns tightly.

“Well,” Low responded casually, “firstly I’d like to settle something with that son of a whore Injun Vane you’ve got there. And then I’ll be taking that Vasquez map off you, if it pleases you.”

Flint glared at Vane. “How can a man who doesn’t fucking speak manage to piss off so many people?”

The situation was serious, but Vane stopped reloading his rifle to give Flint a pleased smirk and a one-armed shrug.

Louder, Flint said, “I don’t know anything about a map, Low. You must be mistaken.”

“Come now,” said Low, sounding like he’d moved a little closer to the barn. “We all know you hit that bank in Kansas City, Flint. The Pinks have even got a trap waiting for you and all, so you may as well hand it over. We’re even doing you a favor, saving you from the noose.”

Flint leaned out and fired, as did Vane and Jack, but it was hard to see without totally exposing themselves. He heard a couple screams, some horses whinnying, so he figured they must have hit something.

Then the Fancy Gang opened fire again, and The Walrus Gang fell farther into the barn, ducking behind posts and the old crates. The smell of the mud and gunpowder and horseshit sent Flint flashing back to the trenches of the war, his heart booming in his chest like cannonfire. Flint always thought he was ready to die, right up until the moment it almost came. Then the powerful urge to _live_ hit him like nausea. He reloaded his guns and ran back to the barn door, because the will to survive always made him act the most suicidal.

For a couple minutes it was nothing but gunfire. Flint got struck in the upper arm, either by a passing bullet or a piece of broken wood. He only noticed it when everyone stopped firing at the same time, barrels all empty.

“This is a waste of time,” Low said, but the nonchalance he normally affected sounded forced. Flint looked out again, just for a moment, and saw that seven members of the Fancy Gang were bleeding on the ground. Their horses had scattered. They were really fucked by the lack of cover. But unfortunately, one of the dead men wasn’t Low. “You’ve got nowhere to run, and you only have so many bullets. Just hand over what we want and this can end quickly.”

But they didn’t have a map. They only had Silver, so surrender, in Flint’s opinion, was not a fucking option. But as he reloaded the last of his bullets into his two guns and caught the bloody, grim faces of his crew as they did the same, he reconciled himself with the fact that Low would still leave here empty handed, even if they all died.

“This is painful,” Silver said, still ducked behind a post.

Flint whipped his head towards him. “Were you hit?”

“No,” he said, his handcuffed hands curled into fists. “But just how long is this supposed to take? Aren’t there only twelve men outside?”

“Five now,” said Anne, her guns held up, ready to fire.

“And he’s worrying you about ammunitions?” Silver snorted. “Surely you each have a single bullet to spare.”

“It’s a little more complicated that that,” Billy snarled. He stood opposite Flint by the barn doors, a scratch on his forehead bleeding sluggishly down his face.

Silver just shrugged, and Flint said quietly, “You’d only need five bullets, then?”

Silver looked at Flint, his face unreadable at first, before he smiled and cocked his head just so.

Flint heard the horses outside trotting closer and, having made his decision, he jerked his head at Silver, beckoning him closer.

Silver crept over to the barn door, still with that small smile on his face as Flint pressed his guns into his hands and reached for the key inside his jacket.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Billy hissed. “Flint. What the fuck are you doing?”

“What’s your problem?” Flint asked, eyes trained on Silver’s as he unlocked the handcuffs.

“Shooting five men riding on horseback is a little different than shooting tin cans, Flint!”

“Need I remind you,” Jack piped in, “that if he dies, the location of the money dies with him?”

“He’s not gonna miss,” Flint said, “and he’s not gonna get shot. Are you?”

“What?” Silver said. He twisted his wrists around, loosening them, hands still tight on Flint’s guns. “And rob you of the satisfaction of doing it yourself? I’d never.”

He went to stand, and for a moment Flint’s confidence left him, and he grabbed Silver by the front of his shirt. He started to pull him close, but Silver resisted slightly, head tilting back.

“Really?” said Silver, his one eye wide. He glanced at the others quickly before adding, “Is this for good luck?”

Flint huffed. “ _Maybe_.” It was for luck, he supposed. It was for $200,000 seemingly balanced over the edge of a cliff. It was because he had known for a short time how nice it was to get a kiss before killing a man. It might have been a goodbye, because Flint knew you might not always get one. It was because he wanted to.

Silver blinked, smiling softly. He leaned in, when another shot pierced the wall, not a few inches above their heads, and they jerked back, Flint letting go of Silver’s shirt as they were suddenly showered with sawdust.

Silver wiped his eye clean with the back of his hand, and then he grinned like an asshole. “Give me a moment, darling. Besides _, luck_ has never had anything to do with it, anyway.” He blinked again. “You should know, I just winked charmingly at you.”

Flint rolled his eyes. “I still might kill you later, you know.” he said, straightening Silver’s hat.

“Finished counting your bullets yet?” Low called out, definitely edging closer. “Finally ready to give up?” 

Silver stood, pressing his back against the door. He leaned out and looked at the men for no longer than a single breath. He inhaled deeply, glanced at Flint one last time, and then he spun out fully, guns already raised.

Flint counted. Exactly six shots rang out, in about three seconds of time. And then, silence.

Silver stood in the open doorway, guns still held aloft, but only one barrel was smoking. He exhaled.

“Hey,” he said. “Who wants a free horse?”

Flint got to his feet. Outside, fresh corpses littered the ground among the muddied, broken skeletons of cattle. Most of the horses had run off, but a couple stood hanging around, laden with packs. The sky was so overcast it was almost white, and a warm wind blew, already pushing dirt over the memory of the Fancy Gang.

“I thought you said you only needed five bullets,” said Billy, standing on the opposite side of them, his face openly surprised. Anne and Vane came up behind him, staring out in disbelief. “I heard six shots.”

“Yeah,” said Silver, shrugging. “I shot Low twice. He nearly _ruined_ my show last week.”

Flint had always found comfort in the fact that he was not a man aroused by displays of violence. It was a commonality among his contemporaries to get off from witnessing or taking part in terrible acts of brutality. But Flint had been a victim of such acts too many times, both during the war and what followed, and he’d seen all that humans were capable of -- what he himself was capable of -- and he prided himself on seeing nothing attractive in any of it. At least, not sexually.

Which didn’t explain why in that moment Flint wanted nothing more than to get his mouth on John Silver again, this time tasting all of him.

He cleared his throat. “Nice shooting,” he said. He couldn’t take his eyes off Silver. The others cautiously ventured outside, checking for any remaining signs of life.

Silver gave him back his guns -- one empty, the other fully loaded -- and stayed close as Flint put them back in his holster. He rested one hand on Silver’s chest, palm pressing hard enough to feel the collar bone beneath his shirt. He wanted nothing more than to clutch at him, pull him apart right then and there, but Flint could think of at least twelve reasons right off the top of his head why it was a bad idea right now. But still when Silver leaned in, he couldn’t move away.

“Yes, it was truly very impressive,” said Jack behind them, “but I do believe I’ve been shot.”

Jack was the only one still on the floor, leaning against a beam. His face was very pale and scratched to hell, but it was the black wetness coating the front of his jacket that was most alarming.

“Jack!” Anne dropped her guns, rushing back in for him. Vane followed closely, but he at least holstered his weapons. “What the fuck!”

They crowded around him, Billy running to one of the packs to get their bag of clean bandages and emergency alcohol. Anne tore off his jacket and ripped a hole in his shirt, muttering under her breath, “Fuck, I’m sorry, _fuck, sorry, fuck--”_ as he winced in pain.

Once the wound was exposed, Flint could see the bullet had entered his shoulder, the puckered red-black hole so familiar it made his stomach turn. Anne tugged Jack forward, leaning him on her, and they all sighed in relief as they caught sight of the exit wound. Half his back was covered in blood from it but it was still a blessing.

“It’ll hurt like a bitch,” said Flint as Billy handed Anne a clean handkerchief coated with liquor. He was speaking from experience. “Probably forever. But as long as it doesn’t get infected, he’ll be fine.”

“Well, hurrah for that,” Jack muttered, snatching the flask out of Billy’s hand and taking a drink.

Anne was staring at him, her eyes a little lost, before she dropped the handkerchief into his lap, grabbed his face and kissed him hard. It was almost punishing, and then she reared back and punched him in his other shoulder, which definitely was, but then she grabbed him and kissed him again, swallowing his groan.

“Don’t you _ever_ fucking do that again,” Anne said fiercely, her forehead pressing on his. “You fucking scared me, you goddamned son of a bitch. You don’t get to just fucking _leave_ like that. You’re _mine_ and you don’t get to die unless I fucking kill you myself, you hear?”

Jack looked dazzled, his eyes so full of raw emotion that Flint felt a little embarrassed to be seeing it. “Yes, dear,” he said, reaching for her mouth again. Flint knew the kind of pain he was feeling, the blood loss and the broken bones, but he understood too well how easily one can be distracted like that.

They all left them alone, certain that Jack probably wouldn’t die and that Anne would eventually get round to cleaning him up. Billy and Vane headed outside to loot the corpses of the Fancy Gang, since they were all in dire need of bullets and perhaps a little variation on food.

Silver followed Flint into the back stall with their horses. He’d been planning to pack up their stuff, eager to get back on the road as fast as possible, but then Silver crowded him against a wall, knocking his hat off. He pointedly placed his hands on opposite sides of Flint’s face and pressed his body against his.

“No more fucking outlaws,” Silver hissed, lips brushing against Flint’s, “are going to stop me from kissing you this time.”

“I think you were the one who stopped it the second time,” Flint said, curling a hand into Silver’s hair. He placed the other inside Silver’s back pocket, tugging him closer.

“Didn’t you hear? I run with the fearsome _Captain Flint_.” Silver bit down on Flint’s jaw, eliciting a sharp gasp. “That makes me a fucking outlaw, too.”

Flint turned his head and captured Silver’s lips, licking inside. Silver’s hands lifted off the wall and buried themselves in his hair. Though Flint’s eyes were closed, this was so much better, kissing him in daylight. All the morning’s pains, his cuts and bruises, the adrenaline rush causing his whole body to shiver -- were diminished by the feel of Silver’s tongue along his. After their first time, Flint had tried to convince himself the intensity of what he felt was just lingering effects from the dream he’d had, his mind still half-asleep and his resolve weakened by the idea of touching him and then finding him _right there_ , inviting him in. But now, wide awake, his feet on the ground -- he could think of no lies to tell himself.

In the end they didn’t leave the barn until well past noon. They’d cleaned themselves up with collected rainwater and bandaged what needed bandaging, storing away new supplies and weaponry. Even though they had a surplus of horses, those that were sharing before continued to share now. As they continued west, they left behind in the mud a creaking barn, some cattle remains, a dozen bodies, a recently doused campfire, and a pair of handcuffs, along with the key.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now with [beautiful art by samhound!](http://samhound.tumblr.com/post/167466386736)


	3. the arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If I had wings like Noah's dove, I'd fly up the river to the one I love_  
>  Fare thee well, my honey, fare thee well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thanks to Allie, and big thanks to El
> 
> <3

* * *

 

_September 16, 1875_

 

Billy leaned against the wall in an alleyway in Boulder, Colorado. He breathed for what felt like the first time in two days.

Back in the barn, when everyone had cooled the fuck off, they were all simultaneously struck by the stench of death permeating the place, and as one they all rapidly realized how close it had come to their own selves bleeding out in the dirt. They’d been followed. Their movements were known. It was common, when riding out in the vastness of the West for days on end to feel like the only people left alive on God’s Earth. The sudden intrusion, especially so violent a one, left them all mighty fucking rattled.

So they’d saddled up and rode like Hell away from the massacre at the barn. They rode like they had after Singleton, without slowing or stopping longer than a blink of the eye. Except this time, their pursuit was a lot less tangible, their destination hazy, an impossible future waiting for them at the end of this endless path.

Not to mention the other thing.

Billy hadn’t mentioned it yet.

Not that there had been any time to, anyway.

He knew the others were waiting for Billy to bring up what Flint had said. Vane, obviously. But with getting shot, Jack clearly thought he was exempt from confrontation, and Anne’s idea of confronting Flint would end with a bullet in someone’s head, so. It was up to Billy.

Fucking Hornigold. Flint had thought it was Hornigold knocking at the door.

The Walrus Gang hadn’t dealt with the Pinkertons since their last tussle in Sioux Falls six months ago. And Billy knew Flint purposely never gave Hornigold much consideration when he wasn’t actively chasing after them. “He’s like a wasp. Painful, sure. Fucking annoying. Not something that keeps me up at night,” Flint had told him once. “I like to believe he can feel me not giving a shit about him.”

When he wasn’t actively chasing them.

They had arrived in Boulder middle of the afternoon on the third day, and the Walrus Gang was currently hiding between the town’s hotel and the hardware store. Boulder was significantly more lawful than Nassau. They had no friends here, and there was too much at stake and too much unsure to be brazen and brash with making their presence known.

So they’d sent a known killer and thief out with most of their money to rent them a room at the inn for the night, all of them in dire need of a real night’s sleep before making their way to Vasquez’s treasure. They also needed clothes not covered in bloodstains. But because even though _they_ knew Silver’s misdeeds, he was the only one of them not on a Wanted poster, so he went alone. It still seemed needlessly foolish to Billy, though. Putting this much faith in a clown.

“Your dick is gonna end with us all dead. Or broke,” said Billy, eyes closed. Silver had been gone a half hour and Billy hadn’t yet formulated his thoughts on Hornigold yet.

He could feel Flint’s glare on him. “He’s coming back,” he growled.

“He’s right,” Jack called over from the mouth of the alley, acting as look-out with Vane. “All our fates, all our futures, rests solely on your dick making reasonable choices. Which, frankly, is not something any dick is known for.”

“Your dick, especially,” said Anne from Billy’s other side, “has awful fucking timing.”

“He saved our lives,” Flint pointed out. But his tone suggested this was a point he’d made to himself, privately, several times over.

“He saved his own life,” Billy said.

“He saved _our_ lives,” Flint insisted. “I handed him two guns, but he only used one. He still had six bullets when he gave them back and he could have killed us all easily. He didn’t.”

Billy opened his eyes. Flint sat across from him, glaring angrily. He’d tilted his head so Billy could catch the full ire of his gaze, but that meant his flushed ears were no longer obscured by his hat.

“Ignoring the fact that the bar is so low for us, that _not killing us when he had the chance_ is a sign of good faith,” said Billy, “I don’t, in fact, have a problem with Silver. But we’re stacking everything right now -- _everything_ \-- on luck, Jesus Christ, and your dick, so forgive us if we’re all a little vocal as to our anxieties.”

“Can we please,” Flint said, teeth gritted, “stop fucking talking about my dick?”

“I thought we were talking about Silver?” called Jack.

“I know what we should talk about,” said Billy. He felt ready now. “Benjamin Hornigold.”

He didn’t smile when Flint’s face twitched and looked away, but it was close. Flint still looked pissed, but he directed it towards the jut of mountains visible in the distance out the other side of the alley.

“What about him?” Flint said.

“You’re a goddamn fucking son of a motherfucker, James Flint.” It hit Billy suddenly, the drastic shift from exhaustion to anger. It hit him like a goddamn train.

Flint sighed and drew his knees up. He pulled his metal cigarette case out of his inner pocket, struck a match, and said, “Scott told me he saw Singleton talking to Hornigold the day he died. Him and that shit-heel lap dog of his.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Anne. One of her hands rested on her gun, but that was normal for her. Billy found himself doing the same, however.

“That’s all I know.” Flint lit a cigarette and turned his head so the smoke didn’t drift into their eyes. “It could mean nothing.”

Singleton had known the money was somewhere outside Boulder, and for a whole week he’d had all the details in his possession. He could have told Hornigold anything. Everything. But the logical assumption to be made was the two of them working together to get rid of the Walrus Gang for good. Because Singleton must have known they’d never, ever stop chasing him after what he did.

“This is a trap,” said Billy.

“Maybe.” Flint shrugged with his good shoulder, almost like a flinch. “Could be nothing.”

“You had no goddamn right not to tell us this.”

“You’re afraid of the Pinkertons now?” Flint’s entire focus was on his cigarette, watching the paper ash between his fingers. His other hand was absently rubbing the scarf wrapped around his neck, and Billy didn’t think he was even aware he was doing it.  “They’ve never come close to getting us.”

“They’ve _come close,_ ” Billy argued. “And they’ve never had an advantage over us like this. Us, specifically, because you _should have told us._ ”

Flint got to his feet suddenly, cigarette clamped between his lips. Billy and Anne also rose. Jack and Vane stayed near the edge of the main street but were no longer keeping watch. The alley was only four feet across, littered with trash and empty wooden crates. It wouldn’t do well for a fight, so he hoped Flint didn’t try and start one. Though Billy was livid, he didn’t think he was angry enough to kill him just yet.

“I did it for you,” said Flint.

Nevermind. Billy was definitely angry enough to kill him.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Anne growled. Billy could see her glance at Jack. He knew violence was typically her first and only response to most arguments, but had never gotten the hang of telling whether it was an appropriate moment for it.

“If you’d known this journey had a bigger danger than that inherent, it’s likely none of you would have come along, and I needed you all here.”

“Yes, I believe that _is_ our fucking point,” said Jack. The hand resting in his make-shift sling was curled uselessly into a fist. “You don’t actually get to make that decision for us.”

“But that would have been a stupid decision,” Flint insisted.

“What?” said Billy. “To want to walk away with our lives?”

“To walk away from what you all are owed!”

Flint pitched his cigarette into the dirt and let it smolder. He took off his hat and held it in front of him, and on any other man it would look submissive, a pleading gesture. But the fierceness of his gaze and the snarl of his teeth were now unshadowed and stark. He looked like a man who wanted to pace but kept himself rooted in his spot, like a man making a final stand.

“Vasquez took that money from the government because they took from him first,” Flint said, looking at all of them. “As they took from all of us. They split the people of this country as easily as striking wood, and now they think us nothing but splinters, digging under the skin of this land. We cause irritation, infection, and the only thing left to do with us is to remove us indefinitely, when they refuse to acknowledge they put us here to begin with. They imprisoned you. They stole from you. They abandoned you. They took the ones you loved. I know because they did these things to me, too. And now they think they can cause all that destruction in us and then sweep it under a rug? Hang us at dawn as they make their way to church on Sunday morning? I won’t allow it. I cannot.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Billy interrupted, his heart pounding sickly in his chest. “Who’s ‘they?’”

“The country! The people, the government. Hell, maybe God. They are the men who killed your father, who destroyed your family’s land, who left you alone and hungry as a child. They think they can create cruel men out of cruel acts and be blameless for it. They are wrong. We have accountability for the things we’ve done, but they _will_ account for us. The road here isn’t ending. It is diverging. We are leaving, yes, but they want us to go quietly and we will do anything but. That money is owed to us. It’s payment for the blackness they allowed to grow in our souls, and I intend to collect every cent of it.”

One couldn’t live off the land without developing an intuitive awareness for danger. Billy recognized it easily in Flint. He could be brutal with his fists, precise with his gun, but truly deadly with his words. Billy had enough distrust of men in power to know when he was being manipulated, but the danger in Flint’s words was in their _truth_. Because Billy hated being lied to, he hated feeling as though he lacked control in his life, and in that moment he hated Flint, but in that moment, too, he wanted nothing more than to spend all of Vasquez’s fortune on matches and sticks of dynamite and not rest until the world in full burned.

Believing the world was wrong at its core, and possessing an unflinching desire to right it at the risk of everything one had -- this was what got his daddy killed. His words had been the truth, too.

“Am I interrupting something?” said Silver. “I could come back later.”

He stood on the opposite side of the alley, holding a beat-up suitcase, looking at them all warily. Flint had given him back his guns before he’d left them hiding here. His hands didn’t rest on them the way they all did, but Billy supposed he didn’t need to.

“We’re just discussing how Flint lied to us about the possibility of this whole thing being an ambush laid by the Pinkertons,” said Jack, “and how we’re all probably going to die trying to get a fortune which may not even exist, because the Captain here is too difficult to be motivated by simple greed like the rest of us.”

“Oh. Is that all?” said Silver. He tossed the suitcase on the ground. “The shopkeeper was very sympathetic to me when I told him I’d lost all my luggage on my travels. Could you believe my carriage overturned right near a bustling river, and swept all my belongings upstream? Terribly unfortunate. He gave me a discount, although he was slightly confused when I asked for different sizes.”

“You should be angrier than all of us,” Billy said to him, but the anger drifted away from his voice for a second as he watched Vane strip off his bloodied shirt for a clean one. “Among us, you’re the only one not currently wanted by law. Yet if Hornigold catches you too, you’ll be hanged as an outlaw right next to us.”

“Well,” said Silver, picking out a clean shirt for himself, “forgetting for the moment that I didn’t actually have much choice coming along with this adventure to begin with, I’ve read many accounts of your bouts with the Pinkertons, and you’ve always made it out fine. Mr. Rackham here knows I’m a decent gambler, and I like those odds.”

“If you’ve read those accounts,” said Billy, “you’ll know we used to be a much larger gang.”

That made Silver pause in doing up his new shirt, his fingers stopped on the buttons.

“You all could leave, ” Flint said quietly, although he was only looking at Silver. “Now you know everything, you can make your own choices. I have no way of keeping you here.”

Everyone was silent for a moment, busying themselves with their clothes while they considered it. Until Jack snorted. “You’re kidding yourself if you think you’ve ever been the one keeping us here if we didn’t want to be here ourselves. And I’ve never in my life walked away from a situation with the only thing to show for my efforts a single bullet hole and an empty purse. I’ll see it through.”

Anne, who’d been helping Jack change and re-tie his sling, watched his face carefully as he spoke. She kept her hand resting on Jack’s arm as she said, “Me too. The worst that could happen is we all fuckin’ die, which is always the worst thing, no matter what we’re doing.”

“That’s the spirit, dear,” said Jack.

Vane huffed, and when Billy looked at him he gave a half shrug and turned back to keeping an eye out on the main street. Billy took that to mean he was in, right up until the moment went south, in which case he had no problem abandoning them entirely. Billy supposed that was his plan too.

“Yeah,” said Silver, to Flint. “I’m still in. Like I said, these are odds I’d bet on, for an opportunity to get something I don’t think I could get anywhere else.”

“And what’s that?” Flint asked, moving to stand beside him.

“One big prize,” said Silver, smiling. “And with it, freedom.”

Flint looked at Silver for a long moment before turning to Billy. “Are we good? Or are you gone?”

Billy thought of his daddy in the noose, how his corpse had bruises not unlike the scars he’d seen looped around Flint’s neck. _It ain’t nothing_ , his daddy had said in those last moments. He’d never been an affectionate or sheltering parent, so Billy never had any reason to believe those words were only meant to comfort him before he’d found himself alone in the world. His daddy had been a blunt man, never had time to be soothing. If he’d said it ain’t nothing, he’d believed it to his last breath.

“We’re good,” said Billy, tucking in his new shirt. “Although if it ends up coming down to a choice between my life or yours, we might not be.”

“Oh, yeah,” Anne called out, putting her jacket back on. “Same for us, too.” Behind her, Vane nodded emphatically. Flint rolled his eyes, but Silver was pointedly silent on the subject so Billy supposed he didn’t care too much about their potential mutiny.

“Well, now that we’ve decided we’re all ready to leave our leader for dead if the situation arises,” said Jack, “I’m in dire need of a bath, a bottle of rye, a bed, and meat from an animal that wasn’t killed two months ago.”

“Come on, there’s a back door for the inn so you can avoid anyone,” said Silver, tossing his dirty shirt over his shoulder. “I got us three rooms--”

“ _Three_? Are you fucking kidding me?” said Jack. “Do we have _any_ money left?”

“I also got us a discount with the innkeeper,” said Silver, as though it were obvious. “Besides, I figure some of us might want a little privacy, and a few hours away from each other would likely do a world of good.” He specifically was not looking at Flint as he pulled out three keys from his pocket, the wooden tags clacking in his palm. “Anne so she could properly take care of her paramour’s injuries, and I figure Billy and Vane could, oh I don’t know. Lie down in a dark room together, quietly contemplating their own revenge fantasies until they fall into an easy sleep.”

That actually sounded like a great evening to Billy, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

“There were only three rooms left at the inn,” continued Silver. “One of them is actually the bridal suite.”

Everyone looked at Anne.

“I will fucking kill you all,” she said, and even went so far as to pull her guns halfway out her holster.

“Well, that’s unfair,” said Jack with a pout. “Maybe tonight I wanted to be the bride.”

“ _Christ,_ ” said Billy, voicing what the rest of them were all clearly thinking, judging by their faces. “That is way more information than I think any of us wanted.”

“If I’m going to be shamed for liking what I like,” said Jack, head held high, “you four are absolutely the last people who should be doing so.”

Billy, Vane, Flint, and Silver all looked elsewhere, avoiding eye contact with each other, but Billy saw Flint’s ears were red again, which matched the flush he felt on his own face. Vane and Silver just looked smug, the bastards.

“I’ll take the bridal suite,” Silver said, like he was doing them a favor. He gave Anne and Vane a key each. “I told the innkeeper I represented an independently wealthy family, looking to purchase a gold mine up in Nederland, and that you were all reclusive people who would not appreciate any disruptions in the night. Any help in maintaining our privacy would be handsomely rewarded before we left, so your rooms should be fully equipped with food and drink, and we should be long gone tomorrow before they find out that was a complete lie.”

Silver led them out the back of the alleyway. The sun had reached the highest peak of the mountain range, balancing there on the tip as though it might fall in front of them instead of behind.

Billy wondered why he ever let himself feel as though anything were uncertain in this life. The sun only ever had one way of setting.

 

* * *

 

The bridal suite was mostly just in name. Silver supposed the single bed was probably slightly larger than the rest of the beds at the inn. The soft, worn cotton sheets were a nice pale lavender color, one he imagined would look good against Flint’s complexion and hair. The room itself was actually smaller than most of the other rooms, possibly in part due to the size of the bed, but also because it had its own washroom, with a real claw foot bathtub. He guessed it was to give privacy to all the blushing virginal brides needing to clean up on their wedding night and didn’t want to wander down the hall to do so, but it was a nice convenience. And the size of the room did heighten the intimacy.

The nicest thing about it, though, was the view. The room’s only window was large, facing west. Looking straight down out it presented the charming sight of the back alley and the inn’s old shithouses the drunks from the saloon still used.

But look outward and it was nothing but wide sky and the mountains, both stretching on eternally. Silver leaned against the frame, windows opened, letting in the mild evening air, content to marvel at them. The sun dipped behind, creating a jagged silhouette, and it looked like the back of some great beast sleeping in the earth. It didn’t terrify him. He felt only awe. He’d seen mountains, sure, but only ever in the distance. He’d never had reason to climb them, and he couldn’t figure out how to even start.

They would be riding into them tomorrow, and the thrill of that act alone had him anxious to move, regardless of their goal or the potential obstacles they faced. He tried to imagine the thoughts of the first people who came upon such a sight, who saw these towering rocks covering the horizon and didn’t assume they’d reached the end of the world. Who still thought to go through them, to complete such a daunting, impossible task with no defined end. Except, maybe, the pursuit of a better world. He couldn’t imagine such bravery.

“You’re truly not mad I withheld information?” said Flint behind him. He’d been making use of the washroom while Silver had lit the candles, before he’d gotten distracted by the view. He’d only lit about half of them, so the room was dim, and felt almost holy.

Silver didn’t turn around, his eyes on the Rocky Mountains and the purpling sky the same color as their sheets, right where the whiteness of the sun bled into the black of the night. “A little mad, I guess. Although my situation is slightly different than the rest of them. I understand their anger, though.”

“You lied to us, too,” said Flint. He sounded like he’d moved closer.

Silver turned his head but couldn’t quite see Flint out the corner of his eye, and he didn’t feel much like moving just yet. “Oh?”

“You said you’d mailed the map to your aunt, yet you grew up in an orphanage.”

“Oh.” Silver smiled softly, looking down at his hands. His wrists were raw and bruised from the handcuffs, bright red, with scabbed cuts over the bones were they’d pinched too closely over the week’s ride. “When Sister Mary Agnes retired from her duties at Holy Angels Protectory, she’d insisted the un-adoptable boys keep in touch with her. She saw us as God’s children, and we weren’t her sons, so she made us call her Aunt. She taught us how to read and write. A good woman, even if her idea of retirement was to live in New Jersey. She’s probably blind as a bat by now, wouldn’t even be able to read the map when she gets it, but I know her to be a sentimental lady, figured she’d keep it protected.”

He turned around. Flint held a candle, and he was shirtless, hatless, scarfless, glowing in the night. His hair was loose, curling over his ears. Silver saw freckles first before he noticed the scars. The freckles dotted every inch of his arms and most of his chest, like gold at the bottom of a brook.

“Honest John, they call you?” Flint’s chin was raised, almost defiant in letting Silver look. He set the candle on the dresser and stood before Silver. The darkness made him move closer.

The scar on his shoulder was the more obvious one. It looked like a good chunk of it had been blown off, a twisted gnarl like the knot of a tree. The ones around his neck were not as noticeable, really. Mostly they were visible due to the lightness of the skin around them, blocked by the sun all the time by Flint’s scarf. About the width of a man’s finger, wrapping all the way around, and they shone in the candlelight like an old burn, because what does a rope ever do but burn?

“No one ever calls me John,” said Silver, drinking in the sight of him. In truth, he _was_ a little mad, but he could think of no argument worth having at this present moment. He wanted to reach out and touch, and really, he had no reason not to. So he did.

Flint shivered slightly as Silver ran fingers over the scarred flesh in his shoulder, tracing all the sharp edges and curved dips. It extended over his back just barely. Whatever had caused such a wound, Flint had been lucky as hell not to have lost the whole arm.

He trailed across Flint’s collarbone, meaning to touch his neck next, but Flint caught his hands. He thought he’d overstepped and was about to apologize, before Flint tugged Silver’s wrist to his mouth and gently kissed the inside, the full of his bottom lip grazing over the handcuff wounds.

“ _John,_ ” Flint murmured, the name spilling over his bruises like ivy.

Now Silver shivered, as Flint pressed another open mouthed kiss and he felt a tongue licking hard at the vein there, Flint’s teeth dragging against the sore skin softly.

“Fucking _Christ,_ ” Silver said, pressing in closer, his other hand clutching Flint at the waist. Flint gave one last kiss to the wrist before moving upward, sucking on the fleshy pad beneath his thumb, swirling his tongue in the center of his palm as though it were his cock. “As much as I appreciate you tending to my injuries, I can’t help but feel there are better uses for that mouth.”

Flint released his grip on Silver’s wrist, and Silver used that hand to cup the back of Flint’s head and pull him down to kiss.

Except for the first time, which had been as light and new as the first footsteps into a dream, every kiss with Flint was like a stampede of wild horses. It was breathtaking and rough, with all the force to knock him backwards but with all the strength to keep him tied upright. Every motion felt random and free, teeth and tongues, hands clutching, hips grinding -- all working to run Silver over a cliff.

Silver pulled back with one final suck to Flint’s bottom lip, then pushed him back onto the bed. He’d been right -- the lilac against his flushed skin looked _perfect._ He had only his trousers on, having removed his boots in the washroom, and Silver felt every stitch of his full outfit stifling him. While the idea of it -- Flint nude, writhing beneath Silver as he stayed fully clothed right down to his boots, Flint’s bare cock rutting wetly against the seams of Silver’s crotch -- was certainly appealing, but Silver needed to be naked _immediately._ He needed to feel that heat against his own skin, needed to know the taste of their mingled sweat. He snatched his shirt and undershirt off in one swoop, the ease he’d felt watching the sunset behind the mountains all but vanished.

Flint leaned back on his elbows. “I don’t do this often,” he said, watching Silver struggle to remove his boots. “Or. Ever. Anymore.”

Silver paused, standing on one foot, the other still in his grip. “What, _never?_ ”

Flint scowled, but he was still pretty fixed on Silver’s chest. “Not _never,_ ” he said. “But it’s been a very long time. Things tend to….end badly. In the past.”

Silver thought for a moment, still balancing on one foot, before he ripped off the shoe with a final tug. “I can understand that. I’m no fan of endings myself.” He dropped his boot as Flint sat up. “In fact, I generally avoid them altogether. Why should things ever have to end when instead they can simply --” Silver ran his fingers along Flint’s clavicle “--change?”

He was about to ask if Flint wanted to slow down, effectively breaking his own heart, but then Flint grabbed him by the back of his thighs and pulled him into his lap.

“Some ends, I am fond of,” said Flint, moving his hands to cup Silver’s ass. The slightly nervous expression had flipped like a coin, and the smile he gave was dirty and promising. “This one,” he said, squeezing pointedly, “I’m particularly enjoying.”

Their position had Silver a head taller than Flint, a fact he liked almost as much as the way Flint was caressing him. He clutched at that red hair and rocked back into his hands. “Are you referring to my actual rear end, or are you calling me an ass?”

Flint bit down into Silver’s neck and said into him, “Both.”

Silver’s breath hitched, moving his head back to give Flint more room. “Why, Captain, I think you just admitted you _liked_ me.”

Suddenly, Silver was on his back, staring up at the ceiling that had been the only view of so many Colorado virgins on their big night. Then Flint loomed over him, straddling his waist, and it was a much more pleasing sight.

“ _God_ , I actually _do,_ ” said Flint, sounding turned on and pissed off, his fingernails raking down Silver’s sides. He looked genuinely confused. “Christ, why the fuck do I want you so badly? I used to be smarter than this.”

Silver arched his back and reached for Flint’s fly. “Don’t worry so much about it,” he said, undoing the button and sliding his hand inside without ceremony. “I’ve always been exactly this amount of stupid, and it’s always worked out for me.”  

Flint whined, low in his throat, thrusting up into Silver’s hand slowly, rubbing against Silver with just enough pressure to make him lose his mind. Flint bent himself low, close enough to kiss but not quite able to focus long enough to do it. One hand fisted the sheet beside Silver’s head, the other clutching Silver's ribs. His eyes were squeezed shut, giving Silver the freedom to gape at him with unrestrained awe.

“There’s--” Flint panted, still moving his hips in short, even thrusts. His eyes, when he finally looked down at Silver, were glassy and black. “There's some oils. By the bathtub.”

He’d had no formed plans, when he'd made his way up to the bridal suite with Flint close behind him and silent. Every encounter with Flint had been like trying to tame a spooked horse -- he’d be fine for a moment before suddenly darting away. Silver hadn't wanted to hope for anything more than what he'd already been given, but it had also been a long time for him too, and Christ, his body ached for the whole of James Flint, a hunger pulsing through his every nerve. His hand stopped moving over Flint's length, and he held onto the perfect heatness of him for a moment before finally dragging his hand out of his trousers.

“Well,” Silver said, shifting beneath him, “you’d better hurry back, then.”

The only other time he’d seen Flint move that fast had been when they’d been getting shot at, or when he’d run out of the tent after sucking him off. Silver busied himself with removing his trousers and kicking them onto the floor, and then Flint was back, also naked.

For a second, they both just looked at each other. Silver cursed himself for not lighting more candles. He didn't know what Flint was seeing to make his face look like that: Silver’s own, smaller, less daunting scars; a sun-scorched complexion and muscles too hardened to ever ache anymore; the impression of bones through pale skin from going hungry for so many years he never seemed to put on weight; the dark hair sparse on his chest before growing denser down his belly and around his flushed cock. A man naked except for his dirty eye patch and all the other evidences of a life lived hard.

But Flint was all sharp planes and solid beauty. His hip bones jutted out like the top of the Rocky Mountains. He was muscle and sinew, a body made to work, to fight, to build, and all the gold of his hair and his sunburnt skin and those fucking freckles made Silver feel like he was lying inside a lantern, burning bright.

Then Flint was on him, cradled between Silver’s thighs. Silver arched up to kiss him, but Flint went lower, his mouth latching onto one of Silver’s nipples and going to work. He bit and sucked on Silver, worrying the skin and moaning into it, his hands tight on Silver’s waist in an effort to keep him _still_ , but Silver kept bucking like a rodeo horse, going mad.

“Oh, _oh_ ,” Silver moaned, his head tossing wildly against the bed. His knees dug into Flint’s sides, his cock leaking all over the hard flatness of Flint’s stomach as Flint kept chewing on his nipple, his tongue rough and pointed on the bud. Silver felt it all the way in his toes, a buzzing kind of ecstasy heightened as Flint moved to the other nipple without lifting his mouth from his chest, sucking on it the way he had Silver’s cock days before. “Oh, Flint, _please.”_

Flint sat up, his lips shining. “Christ,” he said, sounding awed. He ran his thumbs in circles along Silver’s nipples, now sore and wet and aching, making Silver keen. “Just look at you.”

Silver grabbed the small jar of oil Flint had dropped on the bed, pulled at one of Flint’s hands until he had two fingers to fit into his mouth. He took them all the way in while he worked off the top of the oil with one hand, then drew back with a pop. The room filled with the scent of vanilla and sandalwood as he poured it out for Flint.

The first finger felt like how he thought heaven would feel like: a little painful, a little uncomfortable, but once he got used to it, immeasurable pleasure.

He cupped his hand around the back of Flint’s neck, the scarred skin hot under his palm, and used the position to grind himself down. Flint’s other hand went behind Silver’s leg, pushing him open, and Silver stretched out his other leg as much as he could, trying to make room. Their ragged breaths entwined along with the rest of them, both watching as Flint added a second finger and began to scissor him apart.

It had been awhile since he’d done this, and knew the same went for Flint, but figured just like with him, the long stretches without lying with a man were usually punctuated with hurried, meaningless fucks that felt so good and scratched the itch for as much time as it took to find someone else like-minded enough to touch him this way. Silver wanted to ask Flint why this felt so different, watching his fingers move in and out of Silver’s body until Flint added a third and Silver’s eye fell shut with a stuttered groan. He wanted to know why this felt so _remarkable_.

“For fuck’s _sake_ , Flint, _please_ ,” he gasped, eye still closed, so he nearly jumped when Flint nipped at his bottom lip. Silver turned slightly to kiss him properly, hard before pulling back. “Hurry the fuck up already.”

“We could be dead tomorrow,” Flint said softly against his cheek. His lips were everywhere, dragging along his cheekbones, his eyelids, along his jawline before licking at the curve of his ear, and the whole time his fingers were curling and stretching inside him. “Perhaps I want to take my time.”

They could be dead tomorrow, sure, but Silver felt like he was going to fucking die _now_ if he didn’t get Flint’s cock in him. So he put two hands on Flint’s chest and flipped them, trying not to whimper too obviously as the fingers slipped out of him. Flint looked momentarily stunned at the switched positions, eyelashes fluttering.

“I’d like to get fucked before the South secedes again,” Silver said, climbing on top of him, reaching around and grabbing his cock, using the rest of the oil to quickly slick him up. Silver balanced as best he could while holding himself open and sinking down. He took Flint in slowly, the stretch overwhelming him so much he struggled to catch his breath. Flint’s hands running over his thighs and his ass were probably meant to be soothing, but it just made him shake all the way up to the ends of his hair. When he was finally seated, he took a moment to breathe, rotating his hips once as though to punctuate the complete fullness of it.

Flint’s eyes were lost, stuck on the place where his cock was buried into Silver, fingers still dragging along his legs. It wouldn’t have been the first time a lover had thoughts of someone else while with Silver, but for some reason the idea of it now bothered him more than he could articulate. He needed Flint there with him with every ounce of his being, but he couldn’t just _say_ that, in case he was wrong about wherever it was Flint’s mind went.

“Hey,” said Silver, sitting upright. He waited until Flint finally looked at him before he said, “Watch me.”

Flint blinked. “Watch you?”

Silver ran his hands up his own chest, rubbing his aching nipples lightly. “It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve had an audience,” he said. He rose up halfway before sinking back down on Flint’s cock, making them both moan. “I have needs.”

He realized his mistake as soon as he started moving. Flint’s focus was locked on him now, his eyes clear and heated. The intensity of it was like looking into the sun, with the knowledge the fucking thing was looking right back, burning a hole straight into the heart of him.

Silver leaned back, bracing his hands on Flint's knees as he moved up and down on Flint's cock. Flint kept one heavy hand on Silver's hip and the other on his thigh, helping him lift and sink at the same maddening pace. He felt too warm and too full, the stretch of it making him feel exposed, flayed alive. His eye fell shut as he groaned loud enough to probably be heard through the walls, but he couldn't control it, his nails digging into Flint's hot skin. He wanted to hold Flint's gaze but it was too much, and he felt desperate and erratic, like a mad man crawling towards salvation visible on a hazy horizon. Except instead of water, his mirage was a deadly outlaw, spread out beneath him on pretty lilac sheets.

"Fuck," Flint said. Silver couldn't look at him, not yet. He had to focus on breathing, on rotating his hips on and off that glorious cock. "I thought you wanted it fast."  
  
"Said I needed you to fuck me," Silver said between heavy breaths, grinding down. "You're the one who said we could be dead tomorrow. I'm savoring."

Suddenly two hands gripped his ass and Flint bucked up hard and purposeful. Silver’s eye widened as he fell forward in surprise, barely catching himself on the bed beside Flint’s head. Now he was inches from that damn gaze, the green of Flint’s eyes brightly hot.

“It's not tomorrow yet,” Flint growled, hips thrusting hard, fast. “The fucking sun just set.”

It was true. The only light now in the room from the few candles and the street lanterns, barely visible out the open window. Everything was streaked in shadow and dusk, yet Silver never felt more illuminated, especially as Flint held him open wider, planted one foot on the bed for leverage, and fucked into him deeper.

“Jesus Christ,” Flint groaned. He was arching forward like he wanted to kiss Silver but he couldn’t reach and he wasn’t able to pull him down. Silver swallowed his every exhale and felt lightheaded from them. “ _Christ,_ you feel so fucking good around me, you’re so fucking _tight.”_

Silver fisted both Flint’s hair and the bedsheets, doing all he could to hang on. He rode Flint's cock, lifting up on his knees every time Flint pulled back and then meeting hard in the middle, their bodies moving like cannonballs, colliding for maximum impact. Then Silver pressed low, elbows digging into Flint’s shoulders, a whine low in the back of his throat as he trapped his own rigid flesh between their hard stomachs. His sore nipples rubbed against Flint’s chest just this side of perfect.

“Touch yourself,” Flint hissed into the corner of Silver’s mouth. “C’mon, you told me to watch you, I want to watch you come all over yourself. You can work yourself all pretty for me, can’t you?”

Silver found himself nodding, mindless, though it took him a moment before he could get a hand out of Flint’s hair and fit it between their bodies. His cock felt so hot and slick in his hand, almost too tender to touch. He could only hold himself loosely, letting the movement of their bodies help him fuck his own hand.

“That’s it,” said Flint. He’d said he wanted to watch, but his eyes were stuck on Silver’s face again, taking in every gape and groan. “That’s so good, Silver, you’re doing so good. Show me, I want to _see_ \--”

The rhythm was lost completely, their pace as wild and relentless as their pursuit for treasure. The bed creaked ominously, and something banged against the wall above them, but Silver could barely hear anything over the sound of every labored breath and every wet smack of overheated skin.

“Oh, oh _Christ,_ ” Silver gasped, voice rising. He squeezed his cock tighter, and did the same to Flint’s. “Shit, oh, don’t stop. Don’t _stop, oh,_ I’m c-- _Flint!”_

He rose up as he came, his back arching, so it spilled all over his hand and Flint’s chest. Flint sat up with him immediately, one hand clutching at his back, and captured Silver’s mouth, taking in his loud, unintelligible shout. Flint’s hips never stopped moving, jerking up sharply into Silver, who could only shudder through it, breaking away from the kiss to bite his unscarred shoulder hard. His messy hands scratched down Flint’s neck and chest. Silver wanted to cling to every part of him, but he didn’t know where to start.   

“Fuck, that’s it,” Flint said again, moaning, body twitching into every rake of Silver’s fingernails. “God, so fucking _good_.”

One final thrust and then Flint froze under him with a punched out groan. His hips convulsed a couple more times in short burst, filling Silver up, before he was completely still, except for a tremble that shook both of them. Silver couldn’t tell from which one of them it was emanating. He found himself stroking the back of Flint’s hair, the bite in his shoulder now a cool caress of tongue.

Silver had never experienced an earthquake before, but he’d heard plenty of stories: the way the whole world seemed to tremor even after the fact, everyone trying to make sense of the devastation they’d just experienced, everyone trying to figure out where to go from here when their legs were still shaking so badly they could barely stand upright. He’d once heard that some people who got caught in really strong ones could never walk quite the same anymore, their whole bodies rearranged by God himself so they always quivered, always shook until they day they died.

He used to wonder idly what that’d feel like, to experience something that life-changing, but with Flint raising his head to look at him now, the corners of his eyes slightly wet and more than slightly shocked, Silver had a good suspicion he’d never move his body the same way again.

Flint opened his mouth to say something, and Silver knew whatever it was wouldn’t be something he was ready to hear, so he grabbed Flint by the jaw and kissed him again, pushing him back onto the bed. Come dripped out of his ass, and he could already feel red welts stinging on his back from Flint’s nails, but the Colorado air over them was soothing and soft, healing.

Eventually he slid off of Flint, like a sheet of snow slowly shifting down a mountainside, before collapsing face first into the mattress. He made sure to move with Flint on his right side, even though he barely had the energy yet to lift his eyelid.

His sudden movement made the bed creak loudly again, and a second later they heard another bang above them as something hit the other side of the wall. Dust showered down on them. Silver still didn’t move.

“Oh,” said Flint, his voice hushed. “So that’s what that noise was.”

Silver opened his eye but didn’t lift his head. He could see Flint’s head tilted all the way back, looking at the wall behind the bed. The outline of his neck, the curves and the scars, looked in dire need of Silver’s mouth. If only he had to strength to move.

“What did you think it was?” he asked, muffled by the bed.

“I just thought it was my spine trying to escape.”

Silver huffed softly, and Flint looked down at him. Before he’d cursed himself for not providing the room with enough light, but now he was grateful for it. He wasn’t ready for the look on Flint’s face, whatever it was. He wasn’t ready to give a look back. He hadn’t been ready for any of this. He hadn’t known.

“We could be dead tomorrow,”  Silver said again.

Flint hummed. “Or only one of us could be dead tomorrow.”

Silver’s arm rested on Flint’s. Their ankles were crossed. “We might just get arrested,” he said, somewhat hopefully.

“Nah,” said Flint. “Hornigold wouldn’t let me live long enough to reach jail.”

Flint’s hand shifted so it was now on top of Silver’s, his fingers tracing the handcuff marks.

“We could also--” Silver stopped.

“What?” said Flint. “Tell me if I’ve forgotten some other worst case scenario.”

“We could also live,” said Silver. “Both of us.”

“Oh, right,” said Flint. He shifted himself up the bed until he was propped up against the headboard. “We live, and there’s no money. I forgot about that one.”

“No.” Silver pushed himself up onto his elbow. His whole body was still shaking, but he needed to make sure Flint got this. “We, both of us, could _live_.”

Flint was silent for a moment, staring at him in the dark. Then Silver felt a hand touch his wrist again, and the strength went out in his arms. Silver pitched forward, but turned to his side so his head was now resting against Flint’s chest. Fingers began carding themselves through his hair, and he closed his eye again.

“You know,” said Flint quietly, “living, for me, used to _be_ the worst case scenario.”

“For me,” said Silver, equally quiet, “it was the most I could ever hope for.”

They stayed in place for a little while longer. It was early in the evening, and they still needed to eat. They still needed to do a lot of things. Silver was tired, but there were nights where one simply slept, and there were nights where one kept at it until passing out completely, and he had a feeling which kind of night it was.

“We could also live,” Flint repeated, sounding as though he was musing over each individual word. Then he snorted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

 

* * *

 

“Jesus Christ,” said Jack, picking up the boot he’d just thrown at the wall off the floor. “I thought they’d never shut up. Ow.”

“Sit the fuck down, I need to fix your bandages.” Anne had already ripped the bed sheets into strips. “Then we can show them how it’s done.”

Jack smiled at her and came back to sit at the small table in their room. He looked slightly flushed, and Anne hoped he was just horny from listening to those two fucking jackasses next door, and not from any infection. She hated that she was feeling good to go herself from overhearing them, because she was still pissed as Hell at Flint.

“Forget getting caught trying for Vasquez’s money,” said Jack, untying the sling behind his neck, arm resting on the table. “Those two are going to get hanged by the locals for sodomy.”

 Anne went up behind him and began unbuttoning his shirt, helping to ease him out of it. “You’re going to give them a fucking lesson on subtlety, then?” she asked. “ _You?_ ”

“I can be subtle!” Jack protested, twisting around to scowl at her. “Remember that time we snuck into that manor in Louisville during that Christmas party? No one even noticed we’d made out with all that jewelry ‘til we were long gone.”

“They noticed,” said Anne. “I had to do away with five guards while I was keeping lookout for you.”

“What? Really?”

She hummed, scratching his scalp idly. She mentally added cutting Jack’s hair to her to-do list before they leave tomorrow morning. “You don’t remember me rushing us out of there, splattered with blood?”

“It’s more noteworthy when you _aren’t_ splattered with blood.” Jack pouted. “And I thought you were just turned on and wanted to fuck.”

She rolled her eyes but didn’t dispute it, because it wasn’t actually a lie. But they’d been seventeen at the time, and they’d spent almost as much time fucking as they had thieving, and they’d thieved _a lot._

“Keep still,” she said instead, pushing him forward lightly. She held a candle as close to the exit wound as she dared. The skin circling the hole only looked slightly inflamed, but it already looked to her like it was healing. The bandages she’d just taken off were only a little spotted with blood.

“At least I can properly splint it now,” she said, tugging him back into the chair. She leaned over him to inspect the wound from the front, and was pleased it looked mostly the same. “How’s it feeling?”

“Aches some,” he admitted. Then he spat out some of Anne’s hair that had gotten into his mouth. “Do you have to splint it? I wanted to give you a haircut, you’re beginning to resemble a mop -- ow!”

“Just cleaning out some dirt,” Anne said threateningly. She ran her fingers gently along his skin. “I still don't feel anything broken. It just aches because it’s been jostled around on horseback for three days, and that’s all we’re doing going forward, so it’s fucking getting splinted. My hair will keep.” She watched him rub his shoulder with a frown, so she added, “After I fix you up, you can brush it.”

The frown disappeared like smoke. He smiled softly at her, and he didn’t look like he had any intention of stopping it any time soon, so she moved away from him and broke a chair. She had to kick it a few times before one of the pieces of wood was the right size for Jack’s forearm. She dropped it on the table and grabbed the bandages she’d made.

A shoulder wound was by far the most awkward wound to cover. It order to get it to stay in place and not slide around she had to wrap up most of his bicep, and cross it over his chest to secure it. She probably used more of the wrapping that was necessary but Jack didn’t say anything about it.

“Put your shirt back on,” she said. “Then I’ll do up the splint.”

“Excuse me,” said Jack, his smile going from soft to lecherous in the blink of an eye. “Put my shirt on? I thought you wanted to show them how it’s done?” He cupped her cheek as he spoke and answered his own question with a kiss.

Jack only knew how to kiss her the way she liked to be kissed. They’d taught each other years ago, after all, but it still made the warmth curl in her belly like it was still the first time. Anne considered herself a focused individual. Some of their best heists had been planned together while fucking. But Jack’s lips on hers made her forget everything else in the world. She climbed into his lap, remembering his injury at the last moment so settling her hands around his waist instead.

Then Jack pulled away and said, “We should talk first, though.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Anne said.

They hadn't talked about anything after the shootout at the barn. They didn't ever really talk about things whenever they fought and then made up, but to be fair, she was usually the one who was mad. And Jack had figured out pretty quick that trying to get her to talk about it would only further her dwindling anger. But this time she was the one who’d fucked up somehow, and she supposed Jack was going to take every opportunity with it.

But she wasn't about to make it easy for him.

Anne leaned back in his lap and took off her shirt.

He scowled at her, pointedly looking in her eyes.

“That won't work,” Jack said. “I’m not fifteen anymore.”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“...or twenty,” he said. “Or. Twenty-five. Stop it. I want to talk about this.”

“Fine.” Anne sighed, but didn't cover up.

“I’ll try to be brief,” he said apologetically, this time addressing her breasts.

“You’re already going on too fucking long,” said Anne.

Jack’s face was unreadable for a moment, but then that smile rose back on his face like a bruise, small but spreading, tender and raw.

“Everytime I look at you,” he said, cupping her cheek again, “I find myself at a complete and total loss. How could someone like you want anything to do with a wretch like me?”

Anne shifted awkwardly in his lap. She hated when he said things like that. The only moments she didn’t feel wretched herself were when Jack looked at her like he was now. “Christ already,” she said. “We’ll go to fucking Mexico.”

“ _No,”_ Jack huffed. He had both hands on his face now, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Mexico was just a destination. A random place on a map. There are a million places on a map.”

 “Only one place you carry with you all the fucking time.”

Jack looked like he wanted to take his hands from her face to her throat and strangle her. He let go of her completely instead, muttering, “Jesus fucking Christ” as he bent to the side with a wince, blindly reaching for his jacket that had fallen to the floor. Anne tried to steady him but he’d already found what he’d been looking for.

“Take it.” He thrust that damn postcard into her hands. She didn’t look at it. She’d seen it enough to know what it looked like, to know every water stain, every softened tear. “Do you know who gave me that postcard?”

 She shook her head. Like usual, whenever she held it she had to concentrate hard on not ripping the card to pieces.

“Your Max did,” said Jack.

“ _What?_ ”

Now Anne looked at the postcard. The empty coastline the same sickly yellow as the cardstock, the sky empty yet gray, as though covered by a  single massive raincloud. The sea waveless and black. It still seemed so silent, deathly to Anne, and she couldn’t picture Max even holding the postcard (Max liked paintings, she liked color, Anne knew this), let alone being in such a picture. Not anymore than she could honestly picture Jack there. The silence of it didn’t fit with Jack’s boisterousness, and though Max wasn’t as loud as he, she wasn’t silent either. She was _quiet_ , and soft, the way a coyote is quiet and soft. But still a predator, still hunting.

“Why’d she give it to you?” Anne asked, eyeing the beach for some kind of sense.

Jack shrugged with one shoulder. “It was a couple years ago. Shortly after I learned of your affair, I believe. I had thought she’d intended to try and compel me to leave you behind and strike for here on my own, so you could be together. But --”

“What?” Anne’s nails were digging into the postcard. “But what?”

“When I pressed her for an answer, she said she was tired of looking at it. But she said someday I should take you there. She said if I was any decent kind of person, which I suspect she doubted then and now, to be honest, I would take you away from this life and bring you somewhere like this. Safe, calm.”

She kissed him, but in a way to shut him the fuck up. A harsh, short kiss that had many years proving to be the fastest way to silence him.

“Why the _fuck_ does everyone want me to go to fucking Mexico?”

“I think it’s more the idea of it. You know, tropical, peaceful--”

She cut him off with another punch-like kiss. “And when the fuck have I ever been one for _peace_ ? When have I ever been _calm_ in my entire fucking _life?_ ”

“I’m sure there were moments, in that little Lithuanian village--”

She let the card drop to the floor and now grabbed Jack by his face, made _him_ look her in the eye. “I ain’t a little girl anymore, Jack. You know who I am now.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Forgive us -- I mean me -- no, fuck it, I mean _us_ \-- for wanting to make sure you didn’t end up dead.”

“We’re always gonna end up dead, Jack. That’s the only fucking guarantee in this life or any life.”

“Yes, you’re going to end up dead,” Jack said quietly, “when you’re gray and withered at 103 years old, and all your teeth have been replaced with shell casings. You’ll be in a rocking chair on a porch wherever the fuck you want it to be, still mourning the loss of your beloved ol’ Jack, whom you killed at his request once he couldn’t get his dick hard anymore. Not now. Not before you’ve really lived.”

Anne wanted to shake him, and fuck him, and cut his hair. She’d never met anyone with a relationship as long as theirs, except for some lucky families, but she could tell many people were often baffled by it, especially men at Jack for sticking to one (and _only_ one) woman his entire life. She didn’t get what was so complicated about it. It never felt worn. Jack would always do something that made her want to shake him. He’d always fuck her just how she liked it. Hair always grew back.

“Yeah,” she said eventually, “well. Maybe I didn’t really get that, before.” She fingered the fraying edges of the makeshift bandages on his chest, touching lightly at the warm skin.

“I’ve been hurt before, Bon.” Jack brought his hand up to cup hers. “Why did this wound affect you so?”

She shrugged, eyes trained on their hands. “You ain’t ever been shot when we weren’t speaking. But if you’d have died, I would’ve followed right behind you to finish what we fuckin’ started.”

“You mean,” Jack said, “I’d only have to die to get you to start a conversation with me?”

Anne blinked at him, startled by him suddenly grinning like an asshole. “Fuck off,” she said, shoving his uninjured shoulder. She thought she might also be smiling, just a little. “So I guess this means we’re going to Mexico?”

“Fuck Mexico,” said Jack. “Or fuck some boring beach in Mexico, anyway. We can go anywhere, everywhere. Even if we don’t get the money tomorrow, although it would be nice to actually not be destitute when we go everywhere. Let’s go to Peru, or Belize, or Morocco, or India. Let’s discover a new mountain, fuck at its peak, and christen it Mount Jack-And-Anne.”

“Mount Fuck-You-Jack.” Definitely smiling now, what the _hell_.

“Mount Dirty Stinking Thieves.” He planted a kiss at her temple, her cheekbone, her chin. “We can do all of it, or something else entirely. We can be anyone, do anything, with --”

“With what?”

He brushed a strand of hair out of her face. His smile was less stupid, and she could tell by his eyes he was thinking about something hard. But he just said, “With the whole fucking world at our feet. We are _partners_ , darling. You understand that?”

“Yes,” she said, “I do.” Because she did.

“We’re in this together,” he continued, hand still in her hair. “Every decision gets made by the two of us, and if we can’t decide between two things we’ll find a third thing that suits us both.” He gently touched her chin. “So what do you want to do next?”

She thought about it. She drifted to the bullet hole in his shoulder, thinking of all the ways that single ball of metal could have ended up in his head or in his heart. She hadn’t wanted things to change, before, but this road had so few good outcomes for them. And the one Jack was suggesting was completely shadowed and uncertain, and perhaps just as dangerous, but the thing with the unknown was all the good was just as imaginable as all the bad.

“I want to fuck on top of a mountain,” Anne said.

Jack kissed her, or she kissed him. This time it wasn’t about silencing anyone. But this was always part of the conversation she could understand. She pressed herself flushed to Jack’s chest, the bandages soft against her skin.

“I was devastated when I thought you wanted to leave,” panted Jack into her ear, one hand cupping her breast, the other tangled in her hair. “Christ, Anna, thinking I wouldn’t get to see you every day made me want to eat my own gun. Thinking I wouldn’t be able to kiss you, talk to you, _taste_ you --”

Anne bit down into his neck, right below his hairline where she knew it would make him jump. Then in one swift motion she stood. She stepped out of her boots, unbuckled her belt, and let her trousers fall as she walked to the bed.

“So taste me,” she said.

He slid to the floor as she sat down and crawled over as well as he could, given his injury. Usually she liked to lean back on her elbows when they did this, throw her legs over his shoulder while he pulled her forward with his hands under her ass. But now she just curled over him as he nosed her thighs apart. She made sure her knee didn’t press into his wound as she bucked under his tongue, pushing him closer with fistfuls of his hair.

When Max touched her, she seemed to know instinctively what to do to make Anne fall apart. Max was a natural, a prodigy - a combination of being a woman and knowing where to touch, and her innate sensuality. The world fell to pieces when Anne was under Max and she did it effortlessly.

But where Max was naturally gifted, Jack was a learned scholar. He’d spent years studying every inch of her, had in fact been with her every step discovering what made her twitch, or moan, or growl. He was dedicated to the craft entirely, not just bringing her to pleasure but in the art of making her happy, and he did it so easily over all their time together she didn’t even notice it until it had overcome her completely, and when she came she felt a tear leak out the corner of her eye, unbidden.

Afterwards they lay together, Anne wrapped around Jack’s back, both of them breathing hard. They’d certainly shown the two next door how it’s done, although the banging they heard in the middle had come from the _opposite_ wall, which meant they’d all be enduring glares from Billy and Vane tomorrow.

A small tremor wracked her body and she pressed closer to Jack to quell it. She used his shoulder blade to wipe the wetness from her cheek, which had begun to itch. The bare mattress beneath them was coarse on her skin, and the shredded remnants of the sheets had gotten tangled around their ankles as they’d moved on the bed. Through the open windows they could hear the people going about their evening, heading home or to the saloon. Even though she couldn’t make out any words, even though it was all noise muffled through wood and glass, they all seemed to be so solid and simple to Anne. Everyone out there had places to go, people to go to, and nothing to question about any of it.

She used to think herself so different from them.

Eventually Jack rolled out of bed. He got her a glass of water, picked up the quilt from the floor, and wrapped it around her shoulders. Neither of them said anything until Jack ran his fingers through her hair and winced as they caught on a knot somewhere around her ear.

“I think you left your brush in the horse’s knapsack,” he said. “I’ll go grab it.”

“It can wait,” Anne said. “Come back to bed.”

But Jack was already pulling on his pants and shoving his feet back into his boots. “I’ll just be a moment,” he said, grabbing his shirt. “You promised.”

She climbed out of the bed, leaving the quilt behind. She helped him button up his shirt. “Be careful,” she said.

Jack smiled at her, reached out and rubbed the crease between her eyes, the wrinkle that formed whenever, Jack said, she was worried and angry at herself for worrying.

“I’ll be back in two shakes,” he said softly. He removed his thumb from her forehead and kissed her there and was out the door before she could open her eyes again.

Anne got back on the bed, idly working out some of the knots in her hair. Tomorrow they’d head into the mountains, unsure if they’d ever make it out again. They had a rule whenever they had to work with other people: if things went sideways, she and Jack would abandon whoever else to their fate and make their way to safety. Other people were nice, fun even. But they weren’t forever.

They’d been ruthless at times, but that was how you survived childhood. They were two lions alone on the ark, avoiding all the other beasts as best they could, lest they kill or be killed. But Anne knew now lions didn’t live on arks. They lived in vast deserts and warm jungles. They had packs, a pride to rely on. She supposed that was why Noah saved those two lions in the first place - to give them the chance to form their own family.

She knew Jack had a real fondness for Vane. Their friendship was one she often questioned in its strangeness but never felt any kind of actual worry. The only time she’d ever asked him about Vane, Jack had thought about it for a long time and said, “He’s my _friend_.” But he’d sounded so puzzled over the answer, so surprised, Anne hadn’t had the heart to ask anymore.

And now it seemed Vane came with Billy, who Anne was okay with. They didn’t speak much. He wasn’t a total idiot like some of the earlier members of the Walrus Gang. So if things went bad out in the mountains tomorrow and Jack and Anne had to _go_ , they’d be bringing Billy along with Vane, most likely.

Jack had developed a kind of friendship with Silver, too. He’d wanted to kill Silver the most at the start, but the fact that robbing them blind had caused a bond between them to form wasn’t too out of the ordinary for Jack. Not to mention Silver had covered their asses at the barn the other day. She thought Jack might save Silver too, if he needed it.

And Silver would save Flint, she suspected. She didn’t really know Silver, and she wasn’t even slightly naive enough to believe he couldn’t be faking his interest in Flint to undermine all of them somehow. If that was the case, though, she’d save Flint herself just to watch him kill Silver for betraying them.

So if it goes bad tomorrow, they’d make sure everyone made it out of it alive. Probably they’d all go their separate ways after whatever happens, but she’d know they were alive out there and that was fine. Knowing a person was living and breathing, warm and safe and possibly happy somewhere, if they couldn’t be beside you at that moment, close enough to touch - sometimes that was enough.

Anne looked out the window but it was too dark now to make out the mountains. If they wanted to find an undiscovered mountain to fuck on, they’d probably have to travel for it. They’d probably have to get on a boat to find it. They idea made her stomach turn, and she cursed herself for the millionth time since arriving in America. She hadn’t been afraid when she’d been crossing the sea. She’d been confused and angry and sad, but not afraid. The fear only came later, when they’d found themselves on the other side of the country, the sands of California in her toes, and she’d looked at the rolling blue-black and she’d been sick behind some washed up reefs.

Jack had rubbed her back and stolen a lemonade for her, and they never ventured too close to a coastline for almost two decades.

She wondered if she could find her birth home again. Her memories were half-formed and blurred, like a town seen through stained glass. Her accent was gone. Her language was faded. She wasn't sure if she even knew how to pronounce her own name anymore. These things never used to bother her, before.

Finally Jack came back, brush clenched in his hands. He was laughing softly to himself.

“What took you so long?” Anne asked.

“I just overheard John Silver having a very awkward conversation with the hotel clerk,” he said, approaching the bed. “Needless to say, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the noise anymore.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to fucking know.”

“All right then, darling.” His eyes glittered as he held up the brush. “Let’s do this.”

Anne could do it, she thought. She could cross an ocean again.

 

* * *

 

Flint only got up to carefully light the remainder of the candles before getting back on the bed. He’d also retrieved his book from his jacket in the bathroom. Silver had left Flint with explicit instructions not to move or clothe himself while he went in search of food and drink, but night had truly fallen now, and they needed light. He needed to see Silver.

Flint tried reading a little while he waited, but his eyes wouldn’t focus on the words, even though he knew them all by heart. With every blink he saw Silver writhing over him, his ridiculous hair tumbling over those broad shoulders, his face flushed and shining, his eye half-lidded and lost, pulling Flint down into whatever depths with him.

He didn’t feel guilty, holding the book in the same hands that had touched Silver, but he thought he _should_ feel guilty, which was almost worse. The pages fluttered through his lax fingers as he thought what he was going to do to Silver when he got back to the room, or what Silver was going to do with him. The places his mind drifted to was like the battlefields he’d fought on -- there’d be a sort of quiet, almost calm as he tread, before he was struck by an idea like a cannonball, tearing his whole body apart.

He looked down at the book just as the pages flipped to the first one, blank except for a handwritten inscription. Flint stared at the words, and it wasn’t guilt he felt but realization, a dawning horror. He hadn’t recognized the feeling in himself because it had been so long since he’d felt it, had forgotten the sensation in detail. For so long it had only been the imprint of emotion pressed into his heart like soft clay. It was years now he’d held Thomas and Miranda on another level -- his feeling unique to them alone, nothing he’d ever experienced before or since.

But now he remembered how it had started, the only appropriate description was feeling _consumed_ by another. It felt like this. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten it, when he remembered all too well how it ended for everyone.

He wanted to get up and pace, but stayed frozen on the bed. It was all too much. He stared at the words written in faded ink until his eyes crossed and he squeezed them shut. All the ideas that had entered his mind before had turned from illicit to downright irrational. He wanted to run out of the hotel and into the mountains, find his cave already and sleep for a hundred winters. He wanted Silver to fuck him until his legs no longer worked and he could stop running for good. He wanted to drag Silver with him into their own densely wooded existence, away from men with rough ropes and untying knots.

The door opened and Silver shuffled awkwardly inside, carrying a tray laden with meat and potatoes, a dusty bottle tucked under his arm. He kicked it close with the back of his foot and set everything down on the dresser.

“We’ll have to endeavor to keep our voices down,” said Silver, looking hunted. “I made the mistake of emphatically stating I was in here alone before the front clerk mentioned he could hear everything through the open windows. Now I’m afraid he thinks I’m an enthusiastic serial masturbator.”

“Or maybe he thinks you’re lying about being alone,” Flint pointed out. “How’d you explain the two plates of food?”

“I was pretty convincing,” said Silver. His shirt was buttoned wrong but it hardly mattered now as he was working it off. “I told him I’d. Uh. Worked up an appetite.”

Flint shook his head. “So he knows you’re a deviant. It’s not like he’s completely wrong.”

“If it’s against societal norms to feed a beautiful naked man steak in the privacy of one’s own room, than I have no desire to be a part of such society.”

He’d stripped completely and joined Flint on the bed. He sat cross-legged beside Flint’s outstretched legs, placing the tray of food in front of him, then deftly picked up the book from Flint’s hands.

“Working yourself up with your pornography? Good idea.” Silver glanced down at the open page, the note there, and froze. He stared at it for a moment, and Flint stared at him. He caught every minute change, the slight furrow on his forehead, the twitch in his jaw behind his stubble, his eye trained and unmoving.

“‘Know no shame,’” Silver said finally. “Good advice. Though not the easiest to follow.”

“No,” Flint agreed, still watching him.

Silver looked at the inscription a couple more times, flipped through the book without reading anything, then handed it back with a soft smile. Flint kept it closed, hands tight on the worn hard covering as Silver busied himself cutting the food.

“How did you lose your eye?” Flint asked suddenly. He felt consumed again, this time for some glimpse into the man next to him, especially after Silver himself had just received his own small peek into Flint.

Silver froze, knife and fork still in the middle of cutting steak. After a moment, Silver stabbed a piece of meat and held it up to Flint. He was still smiling, though.

“How’d you get your scars?” he asked.

Flint blinked at the dripping steak before snatching the fork out of his hand. “You’re not actually going to feed me.”

Silver sighed. “And another dream dies,” he said.

They ate in silence for a moment, passing the utensils back and forth because Silver had in fact managed to convince the clerk there was only one person in the room. The only sounds were muted chewing and silverware scratching old plates. They kept sneaking glances at each other like shy schoolchildren instead of two grown men who’d already fucked once this evening.

“Story for a story?” Silver said after they’d made a large dent in their dinner. “You should really go first, as you brought it up. Although since you have more scars than I have eyes missing, it’s perhaps only fair if you just tell me the story behind one of them.”

“Well, which one do you want to know about more?” Flint asked.

Silver’s eye danced over Flint’s body, taking in his bullet wounds, his battle scars, his childhood injuries, before reaching out, brushing his fingers gently along Flint’s throat.

Flint wasn’t surprised by the choice or the touch, but both made his heart thud heavily, like too many footsteps pounding up a staircase where no one should be. He could lie. He had in the past. It turned out lying about the very foundation for your entire self was pretty easy, with time. But they were both naked here, in this darkness, and he couldn’t think of any other stories.

“That actually begins with this,” said Flint, touching the gnarled scar in his shoulder. “It was, Christ. Eleven years ago, when I was serving in the Army of the Potomac. I went by McGraw then, James McGraw. I wasn’t a conscripted man, you know. I’d joined the army before the war had even started. My family had been poor, not quite destitute but close to it. It seemed the best way to make a real life for myself.

“I had just made lieutenant when my regiment was sent to Virginia. This was May. They call it the Wilderness Battle now, I believe. It’s an apt name.”

Silver whistled. “That was a particularly bloody one, wasn’t it?”

Flint nodded. “They were all blood. And shit, and dirt. You never saw the same faces twice, because your men were dropping by the dozens every hour and they’d send in replacements just as fast. In just over two days we lost over two thousand men, the other side just under that.

“On the eve of the second day I was sent to help organize a regiment of inexperienced soldiers out of New York when we were attacked as night fell. We managed to hold them off, but not before I was hit. It was actually debris from where a nearby tree had been struck, piercing right through my shoulder. An inch to the side and I would have lost the whole goddamn arm. An inch to the other side and it would’ve been been my fucking head. As it is, I’ll never been able to lift the arm higher than this.”

He demonstrated, holding his arm straight out. His fingertips brushed Silver’s shoulder. 

“Just high enough to aim a gun,” said Silver. He was still touching Flint’s neck.

Flint let his hand drop. “My General was fond of me. Thought I had potential, I suppose, to be an intelligence officer despite the injury, so he paid to have me sent to a hospital in Pennsylvania to heal under a doctor friend of his, named Ashe. The town was called Glen Rock.

“By the time I’d arrived, I knew there was nothing I’d like to do less than stay in the Army for the rest of my days. I’d seen the carnage it caused, seen the damage and disregard it gave to whole lives without a shred of remorse. I’m not saying I’m not myself capable of brutality or that I have no stomach for it. In the years since the war, I’ve been responsible for incredible violence, and I don’t pretend it was anything but that. But I know where I learned to develop a taste for the blood on my tongue, and it was in the dark woods of Virginia. And I suppose the difference between my actions during the war and afterwards only lies in whether the decision to act was mine alone or whether I was just following another order. It’s a thin distinction, but one that matters.”

Flint had been staring at nothing as he spoke, and he started just a little as Silver’s hand landed warmly on his knee. Silver was watching him, saying nothing. Flint couldn’t believe it had been so recently he’d wished for absolute silence from this man, when right now he’d give anything for an interruption.

“There were quite a few soldiers recovering in Glen Rock, many with worse injuries than mine,” Flint continued, looking at Silver’s hand. “It only furthered my distaste for a military life, the smell of cauterizing flesh and infection so thick it lingered in the sheets of my cot, from whatever poor bastard had been sleeping there before me. While I recovered, my wound healing but my soul rotting, I met two people. The first was a nurse, a woman who knew how to use her softness to conceal the fiercest intelligence I’ve ever known. Her name was Miranda Barlow.”

“Mad Mir--” Silver stopped, going so far as to bite his lip to stop himself.

Flint grinned, and it was only somewhat sad. “You can say it. _Mad Miranda Barlow._ She was the only one I’ve ever met who enjoyed the name the papers gave her. I told her they were calling her insane, not angry, but she didn’t care. Or rather she agreed with both. She said, after all, it was her rage that had driven her to her actions.”

“Her rage?”

“And my own,” said Flint. “But I’m getting to that. She was the first person after the battle I could hold a conversation with, although I think my bitterness only served to frustrate her. So she brought a friend to visit me while I recuperated, because she said she had work to do, and he could spend hours at a time debating me in the merits of humanity. His name was Thomas. Thomas Hamilton.” 

Silver’s eyes flicked to the book, closed now on the bed beside them, but he didn’t say anything.

“He was a preacher in town. His church was small, run-down, brutally hot in the summer, though he said it was also completely incapable of holding heat in the winter. Still, it was the most populated congregation in town. People from all over came to hear him speak on Sunday. He drew in every type, all of them affected by his gospel.”

Flint paused, and into it Silver said, “He was black.”

He searched Silver’s face hard, but didn’t see anything he was afraid of seeing. “Yes,” he said. He thought Silver could probably fill in the rest of the story, but he continued anyway. He’d never spoken about this to anyone before, and it seemed to tumble out of him like an avalanche. “He was born free, which I think was what made him more hopeful than one would expect for humanity’s goodness. He knew too well of its evil, certainly, but he often said his existence, his experiences, were proof enough for him of all that was possible in the world. His mission was to make the rest of the world certain of it too. We argued all the time.”

Flint’s face felt funny, and when he rubbed his beard he realized he was still smiling, just slightly. The ache in his chest was not as painful as it used to be, but still persistent, like choking on something sharp and jagged for years before finally being able to swallow, and each breath hereafter brought real hurt that could only recede one inhale at a time.

“When I was finally able to leave the hospital, but not recovered enough to return to active duty, I spent most of my time in discussion with him. Besides Miranda, who still had a job to do, he was the only friend I had in Glen Rock. After his sermons and every evenings, he would invite anyone who wished into his apartment above his church for hours to debate everything: religion, philosophy, art, literature, politics, the war. He was the most learned man I’d ever known, all self-taught of course, and because most people wouldn’t think it to look at him, he accepted anyone who had something to say to speak. Apparently it had taken awhile for people to accept it, simple farmers conversing with scholars on the Book of Revelations, black women arguing over the state of the Union with white lawyers. But Thomas wanted no one left out of the conversation. It was, he said, our shared world.

“But then the hours would grow late, and everyone would eventually make their way home, except for me, and Miranda. And she had seen more horrors than I, tending to all the wounded, and he had known more misery than I, living in a nation such as this, so we just naturally fell together, I think.”

Silver raised his eyebrow. “What, all three of you?”

Flint nodded. “Miranda made the first move with me, separately. Thomas did the same not long after, though she was present. They liked to joke that if every Union officer was so nervous about making advancements, the South was sure to win the war. For a time, we found happiness in the middle of complete anguish, which was more than most people got.”

Silver got up suddenly and disappeared into the bathroom. He came back with Flint’s cigarette case. He lit one with a candle, took one inhale, and handed it to Flint, who took it gratefully. Silver watched him silently as he smoked it to nothing but ashes, his fingertips slightly singeing.

Eventually, Silver asked, “So how’d it end?”

Flint wanted another cigarette, but decided he’d have it when he’d finished, because he knew he’d need it. “We discovered later it was Dr. Ashe who had betrayed us. He’d been a regular for Thomas’s discussions, and he liked to pretend he was a progressive man. But as it turned out, that was far from the truth.

“It wasn’t even me that was the catalyst. Apparently he’d seen Miranda and Thomas talking in town one day. They’d been friends long before I’d arrived, and they were smart. They were cautious. They never were anything other than cordial in public. Thomas might have touched her elbow as he passed her by, or she might have smiled too widely at something he said. Who knows what Ashe saw explicitly to rile him up enough to call together a group of men in town. They tolerated Thomas as a man of God, a novelty to show how different they were from the slaveowners in the South, but their hospitality only went so far.”

Eleven years. Yet he still shook with the memory, lingering in his system like a bad fever. Only the hand Silver had placed back on Flint’s leg seemed to be keeping him from flying apart.

“They stormed Thomas’s church just after midnight,” Flint continued, his voice low. “Wanted to catch them in the act, I guess. Only they didn’t know another doctor had sent Miranda up to York for the day to retrieve much needed medical supplies for the hospital. So they only caught Thomas with me. And, well. I’m sure you can imagine a black man with a white man was just as bad as a black man with a white woman.

“They beat us, inches from the bed we shared. I think -- ” Flint stopped, closing his eyes, looking in the darkness of his own skull to ground himself. “I only saw his face for a moment, but I think Thomas was already dead by the time they dragged us outside, two men waiting for us with knotted ropes beneath the oak tree Thomas himself had planted. I’ve always found that to be, I don’t know. Something of a comfort, I guess.

“They strung him up next to me anyway,” Flint said.

“Jesus,” Silver whispered. His grip on Flint’s knee was tight, his fingers so warm.

“The war made everyone hard, and vicious,” Flint continued, eyes still closed. “Even though Miranda was a nurse and a woman, it was still dangerous to venture out alone to get the supplies, so she traveled with a pack of hunting dogs belonging to the doctor who had sent her away. She arrived just as I was pulled up into the tree. They hadn’t time to find something to push me off of, and anyway I don’t believe they saw me deserving of a quick neck snap. They wanted me to die slow. I had just started to lose consciousness when the dogs came tearing down the road, and the men scattered, dropping us both to the ground.

“Miranda -- I don’t know how she did it. She was an unbelievably strong woman, in a lot of ways. Somehow she got us both in her cart and to an old cabin which belonged to her family. She tended to my injuries with the supplies she never got to turn into the hospital. Together we buried Thomas in those woods, even though my arms, my ribs, my ankle were all broken, and it was yet weeks before I could speak without utter agony. She focused all her energy into saving me, and when I could walk again and he was in the ground, neither of us had anything left to distract us from our vengeance, and no other purpose left in the world but to satisfy it.”

It was quiet for a moment, and Flint opened his eyes again. Silver looked aghast, his throat working hard. Eventually he said, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Flint said. “You’re not the first person to ask me about this.” He touched the side of his neck gingerly. “There are dozen of believable lies I could have told you, but I wanted to tell you the truth because -- I don’t know why. I just wanted to.”

Flint wondered if Silver would have preferred a lie. From his expression he was definitely expecting one.

“I appreciate that,” Silver said. “And I am genuinely sorry.”

Flint half-nodded, and turned to look out the window. It didn’t quite feel like a weight was lifted, sharing his story, but it definitely felt shifted to the side, lighter now that it was carried by two people again instead of one.

“I’ve heard tales of the Captain,” Silver said, “and Mad Miranda Barlow. Stagecoach robberies, home invasions, a trail of bodies. I hadn’t really made the connection, since the Captain of the Walrus Gang rode with a different woman, and --”

“And the death of Mad Miranda had been well-publicized,” Flint finished. He stood and retrieved the liquor Silver had left on the dresser. There were no glasses in the room so he drank straight from the bottle, and handed it to Silver. “We wanted revenge. James McGraw was dead, so I became Flint instead. I taught her how to kill a man. She taught me how to persuade anyone of anything without always resorting to violence. There were about eight men in the mob that attacked us, and tracking them all down had taken years. Ashe had not been among them that night, I would have recognized him, but one of the men gave him up before he died.”

Flint took the bottle back from Silver, took another long sip, and went on, “He was the last one we found, about six years ago now. He’d been traveling by stagecoach through the Black Hills with his wife, trying to outrun us. But he’d had arranged for a posse to escort him, and even though we managed to kill him they gave chase. She caught a bullet in the back of her head as we were escaping. I couldn't even stop to get her body.”

Silver let out a low, sad noise, his hand running down over his calf in a soothing motion before resting on Flint’s ankle. He looked solemn and drawn, and this was the end of Flint’s story. Miranda had died, and he hadn’t, and for years he kept not dying, and there was nothing more to say about it. But the expression on Silver’s face made him want to find a more satisfying end for James McGraw, one that would bring that easy light back to Silver’s eye.

“After, I had nothing,” Flint said. “No love, no revenge. I thought I wanted to die, but every time I thought about eating a bullet I couldn't do it. I decided I wanted to be every bit the monster this country made me to be. I would terrorize them until they finally had the fucking strength to end me. But it's been five years of this, and once again this place, these people are a fucking disappointment. So I’ll take what's theirs one more time and disappear for good.”

He felt he had more to add but managed to shut himself up in time. Outside, an argument had broken out in the saloon and had spilled into the alleyway. Crickets sang the only song they knew how to sing. Bottles clinked, horses whinnied, men laughed. Flint said, “So that's the story of how I got this scar.”

Silver looked down, looked away. He got up, removed the tray of cold food from the bed, and crawled back up to him. Then he found Flint’s face, searched him with his one piercing eye for the faintest trace of insincerity, and when he found none, he sighed heavily.

“Now I really feel bad,” he said, “about making you go first.”

Flint blinked. “What?”

Silver gestured vaguely to his face. “My story isn't even remotely as tragic. Or as long. You see, I never lost my eye.”

“ _What?_ ”

Silver angled his head so only the blind side was visible by the candlelight. The patch covered his eye socket completely, and Flint had no idea how a scar that ran above and below it like that could not affect the eye in between. He was ready to get pissed, the sadness that had threatened to swallow him, just from uttering Thomas’s name out loud let alone the rest of it, dissipated, replaced by the start of a boundless rage. How _dare_ he?

But then Silver removed the eyepatch, and then Flint didn't feel angry anymore.

“I never lost my eye,” Silver said. “I never had it to begin with.”

The scar ran down the side of his face, unbroken across a smooth patch of skin where an eye should have been. He didn't even have an eyebrow. The skin was drastically lighter where the patch had laid for who knew how many years, and it looked to Flint so delicate, so vulnerable.

He curled his hands into fists to stop himself from touching without permission.

“It's been suggested to me in the past by angry former lovers that losing this eye is what turned me into a cold fucking bastard,” Silver said calmly, although the way he was twisting the ratty eyepatch around in his hands suggested he was anything but. “Or they’d say it was my penance for _being_ such a cold fucking bastard. But the truth is I was born a step behind everyone else and that's all I’ve ever known how to be. I guess that means I was born a cold fucking bastard.”

“No, you’re not,” Flint said.

Silver made a face at him.

“Okay, you are,” Flint admitted. “But so am I. And you're more than that, besides.”

“Oh, really?” Silver smirked slightly. “What else am I?”

It felt too soon to be smiling, but Flint did it anyway. He cupped Silver's cheek, the side with the scar. “A hot fucking bastard,” he said.

Silver kissed him softly, briefly, lingering on his bottom lip before pulling back. He went to put the eyepatch back on but Flint stopped him.

“Most people don’t like looking at it,” Silver said, eyeing him curiously. “It makes them uncomfortable, which in turn makes me uncomfortable. That’s why I generally keep it on.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Flint assured him. He lifted his hand slightly. “Can I --?”

After a slight hesitation, Silver nodded, and Flint gently touched the blank patch of skin on his face. Though it was untouched by the sun, it was as soft and warm as the rest of him.

Silver shivered, watching Flint with his mouth agape. “Well, it’s fitting we had this conversation in the nude,” he said. “And here I thought I killed the mood.”

“I’m the one who brought it up,” Flint said. He leaned back on the bed and tugged Silver down with him, his head landing on Flint’s shoulder. He nuzzled Silver’s hairline, planting an open mouth kiss on his brow. “Where did the scar come from, then?”

“My father,” Silver said with a sigh. He toyed idly with Flint’s chest hair. “Shortly before he died. Blamed my mother for me being born this way, of course. He thought it’d be better if it looked like I’d lost the eye in a fight, rather than people knowing I’d been born a freak.”

Flint could picture Silver’s youth easily, what it would have been like to create a man like the one lying on him now. Everything would have been a struggle for him, a life filled from the start with scraps, with belittlement, with hunger. It didn’t surprise Flint that Silver had taught himself to shoot. A life like that, you learn early the only protection you’d ever get was one you gave yourself.

Silver shifted, reached beneath him and pulled out Flint’s book.

“Want to read me some of your pornography?” Silver asked, handing it to him. “It’ll get us ready to go again.”

“It’s _poetry,_ ” Flint said, but he flipped the book open anyway. “Poet’s name is Whitman. You’ll like it. This one’s called ‘The Song of Myself.’”

“Ooh, my favorite subject,” Silver said. Then he asked, almost shyly, “He gave you this book?”

“Yes.” Flint paused in his search to press his face into Silver’s hair. The curls tickled his nose. It smelled like sweat and smoke, and he thought he could fall asleep like this. “He was a beautiful speaker, both in intonation and diction. He had the kind of voice that made you believe in God. I used to argue with him just to hear him speak.”

Silver snorted. “Like you ever need an excuse,” he said. “You’d argue with a horse if you thought it would make it run faster.”

“I am a very relaxed, easy-going person,” Flint countered. He found the part he was looking for, but stopped. He handed it back to Silver, keeping it open. “You should read it to me.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because I’ve heard it enough times in my own voice,” Flint said. “I want to hear it in yours.”

Silver took the book from Flint slowly, and Flint reached for the candle on the side table to bring the light closer. Silver looked over the page for a moment, and then began to read aloud.

“ _I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning_ ,” Silver said. “ _How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me, and parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, and reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.”_

 

* * *

 

  _September 17, 1875_

Billy leaned against the alley wall again, glaring as hard as he could at the others. It was dusk, and dark behind the hotel, so he had to make sure that his ire was still felt by everyone.

Only Flint had the sense to look a little embarrassed, but with the air of someone who still spent the night having excellent sex so the shame wasn’t very heartfelt. Jack and Anne, of course, were completely unrepentant, but that was the usual for them. Silver had gone to retrieve their horses from the stable, but he had a suspicion he’d be just as without remorse as the rest of them. No one had anything to say. It was early, and they were all tired yet filled with unmistakable anticipation. Billy suspected they all knew by that time tomorrow morning, their whole lives would be either completely different, or nonexistent.

Vane rested on the wall beside him. While Billy glared at the others, he could still see Vane out the corner of his eye. Normally Vane found ways to keep himself occupied in still moments, cleaning a weapon or standing watch. But now he just looked up at the sky, staring at the stars as they faded with the rising sun. While everyone else seemed anxious, Vane looked rested, calm, his chest lifting with steady, deep breaths. It threatened to distract him from appropriately hating the rest of them, and he struggled to refocus.

He was still trying when Silver showed up with their horses, as well as a couple shovels he’d probably stolen from somewhere. He smiled widely at the somewhat awkward silence.

“Good morning, Billy,” he said cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”

Billy scowled and refused to answer, not just because he didn't have a simple one.  Last night with Vane had been… strange. He’d never before been alone in a bedroom with a person he’d felt any sort of way about. He’d slept with a woman once, after he’d escaped the chain gang, because it seemed like the kind of thing one did in that situation. It had been fine. But it hadn’t been in any sort of bedroom, and she’d left straight afterwards, which had suited him fine.

There was a quiet yet shocking sense of intimacy, two people and a bed behind a closed door. The night before, he’d had no reference point for it, and he’d had no idea what to expect or what Vane expected. He hadn't been alone with Vane since the night Vane had kissed him and they'd watched the storm. It had terrified him, being alone in that room, and Billy wasn't a man to frighten easily. The sound of everyone around them fucking  through the walls hadn’t helped, either.

But they had eaten in comfortable silence, and then Vane had removed his boots and his outer shirt, so Billy had followed his example. But Vane had only sat down on the bed and showed Billy the best way to sharpen a knife. Teaching without speaking was time consuming, and eventually the liquor and the long days had caused them to pass out on the single bed, knife and strap lying between them.

He’d awoken at dawn to Flint knocking on their door, Vane wrapped around his back. It should have been awkward. The height difference alone should have made it uncomfortable, but Billy had felt uncomfortable an immeasurable amount of times in his life, and it hadn't felt that. It had been… nice. He’d never slept so well.

But he wasn't about to admit any of that to Silver, and the new day, their journey ahead, had him on edge. Contemplating the previous night only worsened it, so he snatched the reins out of Silver’s hands and moved to saddle up. The others followed suit -- Silver behind Flint, Jack behind Anne, Vane at his side.

“There's only one pass into the mountains,” Silver said as they left town. People were already starting their day, despite the sun barely rising. They tried to keep their pace as unsuspicious as possible. “Vasquez’s map only showed as far as Nederland. It's a new settlement, only about fifteen miles from here.”

“Gold?” Billy asked for no real reason.

Silver nodded. “The innkeeper pointed out different discoveries on a map. Looked like most were to the south, and we’ll be heading north from there. So hopefully that means our treasure is there and not blown sky high.”

“It’ll be there,” Flint said, and his tone was such as to put an end to all conversation.

The pass formed a canyon through the mountain, and once they entered it, night might as well have still been upon them. The high rock walls blocked the few tendrils of sun rays. Everything was awash with an absence of light, no longer even stars out to shine on their path. It was a steady dusk, the air shaded purple like a bruise. The dimness made their trek slower than they’d like, an uneven trot instead of a gallop. Thick evergreen trees stuck out from the sides of the mountain walls like arrows in a hunted animal, so dense the earth below them was completely obscured. The pass was rocky and narrow, with room for only two horses at a time. Summer had clung to September like heartbreak, but there in the shadows of the mountains the chill of autumn arrived with them.

“I believe we can follow the creek all the way up,” said Silver, voice hushed for no reason than it felt appropriate in the dark. They could barely see the river, but they were all able to follow with ease the sound of rushing water over smooth stones.

It was about the only thing Billy felt easy about. Every snapped twig made him jump. He thought the sound of the creek might mask the tracks of anyone following, but he couldn't figure a way to leave it. They had never been in so tight a spot before. Usual pursuits were in open terrains or busy towns, and Flint excelled in maneuvering them out of it, along hidden paths that seemed so obvious after they had made their escape. But Billy thought if Flint knew of any other way to get to their money, they wouldn't be traveling the one and only road to it. Their last resort was their only one.

Not to mention, they didn't even know if they were _being_ pursued. After they robbed a bank, it was always pretty fucking obvious if someone was chasing them. Now the only thing that was clearly chasing them was the lingering darkness and changing seasons. Billy liked to know whom he was fighting. He liked to see them.

Billy knew he wasn’t the only one feeling uneasy. Once the sun had risen enough where they could actually make out their surroundings, Anne had stopped her horse and insisted on Jack taking the reins, despite his injury, so she could sit behind him with her hands on her guns. Even Silver didn’t attempt to fill the silence with idle chatter. He looked pensive behind Flint, keeping his eye forward and focused with the air of a man listening hard. Billy was suddenly struck with a vision of them as a herd of deer, tense and waiting for something to strike. It wasn’t a comfortable image.

“About how far, Silver,” Jack asked quietly, “once we reach Nederland?”

Silver took a moment to respond, and when he did his eye was still unmoving on the shadowy trail. “It’s unclear from the map what kind of terrain we’ll be facing. If it were my treasure, however, I certainly wouldn’t bury it beside a well-visited path. Probably we’re looking at rocky roads, dense wood.”

Jack nodded grimly, even though Silver wasn’t looking. “Might have trouble leading the horses, then.”

Silver hummed. “Might.”

The canyon walls rose high on both sides, but not too steep a person couldn’t hide in them. Billy felt like blood, coursing through the veins in the arm of the Earth. He hoped soon there’d be a cut, and they could pour out of this godforsaken crevice.

Beside him, Vane was giving into the temptation Billy himself had been trying to ignore. Vane was turned in his saddle, watching the trail of footprints they were leaving behind. Somehow he was able to keep his horse straight without looking, which Billy would find admirable if he wasn’t so damn worried.

“Do you hear something?” Billy asked, dreading any kind of answer.

Vane shrugged without turning back. Then he shook his head. Then he looked Billy in the eye and shrugged again.

Billy wasn’t soothed.

Flint said, “Once we get to Nederland, we’ll stop for a moment to water the horses before Silver leads us where we’re going.”

They passed a painted sign pointing out Nederland as only 4 miles away. Billy thought if they could just make it out of the canyon, they’d all be fine. They just had to make it out. But he couldn’t understand why, after weeks of rushing, Flint wanted to dawdle now.

But asking seemed almost like slowing them down even more, even though Billy could see he wasn’t the only one wanting to argue. Perhaps the closer they got to their goal, the more Flint began to doubt himself, but Billy couldn’t really imagine it. If anyone seemed incapable of having doubt over anything, it was James Flint.

So he said nothing, and now that it was lighter, he watched the trickling over the running water in the creek. Billy wondered how cold it was, if it was runoff from melting snow. He knew if you went high into the mountains, there was still sometimes snow on the ground. The first time Billy had ever seen it had been after they’d pulled a job in Montana a few Marches back. The others had found it hilarious, how he’d stood in the middle of this field in a thin coat, face turned upward as the whirlwind of flakes covered his cheeks and eyelashes and lips. He’d heard before that snow always made things quieter, and it was a truth he felt in his own soul. He knew if (when) they got their money, Jack and Anne might be heading south, and Flint he figured was going further west. But Billy thought he might go north -- true north. Just for a little while, until next summer at least, to see how long the snow lingered.

It was almost a relief when they rounded a corner and saw Benjamin Hornigold waiting for them. It felt like everything was right on schedule.

The Walrus Gang pulled to a stop, just ahead of the curve. Hornigold sat astride a tall black mare, alone except for his right hand, that weasly-looking fella Billy thought was named Dufresne. They sat in shouting distance on the thin trail, the ground disappearing on the left where the creek flowed some ten feet down, the mountain walls rising on their right. They appeared to be alone. There was no fucking way they were alone.

“Howdy,” said Hornigold.

Flint spat on the ground and said nothing. He hadn’t reached for his guns the way everyone else had. But none of them had pulled anyway, given that Dufresne had his shotgun trained on them before they’d even showed up.

 “”Fore he died, your man Singleton sold you out, you know,” said Hornigold.

“Figured,” was all Flint said.

Billy had never been this still around the Pinkertons. He’d always been running from them, only catching glimpses of Hornigold out the corner of his eye. He was older than Billy had thought, his hair style old-fashioned and severe. Flint had always said Hornigold carried himself as though he were higher than his station, and now Billy knew exactly what that looked like. He could easily see Hornigold had led hundreds of boys to their deaths in the war, and he could guess the man had developed something of a taste for it.

Anne slowly started undoing Jack’s sling one-handed, her other resting on her gun. Jack didn’t even wince. A pained arm would be better than a bullet to the heart. Jack knew he had to shoot.

“I gotta say, Flint,” Hornigold said, his horse shuffling slightly, “I feel like I should be thanking you. For awhile there I didn’t think anything could interest me after the war. But I guess me and you know, all good things must end eventually.”

Silver seemed to be trying to make himself smaller, hiding behind Flint. Billy thought he was attempting to use Flint as a shield, but then he realized he was trying to draw without being noticed. Silver worked better with speed, though, that was clear. A sudden jerk of his elbow had Dufresne pointing his gun right at them with a glare.

And Vane was -- still looking behind them. And in the quiet morning, the panic on his face seemed loud.

Flint still hadn’t moved. They hadn’t had time to prepare for this eventuality but Billy had thought any plan would have involved him _moving_. He didn’t touch his gun still. He just said, “So get to it, then.”

Hornigold smiled. “Get to what?”

“Thanking me,” said Flint.

The smile turned into a snarl as Hornigold pulled his own guns. His horse moved a few steps forward, but halted as Silver and Anne had drawn too. Hornigold looked affronted that someone would aim a gun at him, and seemed especially offended that a woman had been one of the culprits. He didn’t back away, but the smile he gave them again was just as smug as before.

“I’ll do you one better,” he said, gun trained right on Flint. “You’re going to tell me how to find Vasquez’s money. We know Singleton didn’t have the map when he died. If you hand it over, we’ll save you the misery of being pressed into a chain gang or hanged in a town center. We’ll just kill you here, as a favor.”

Billy felt it so strong and so sudden he could taste it, and it tasted like bile -- he felt _grateful_ to receive such an offer. Hornigold killing them instead of arresting them was the best outcome he could hope for, it seemed, and the way he’d offered it sounded like he was giving sweets to a child. Billy heard it, and his first instinct was to sigh in relief, and it made him want to unload every bullet he had right into Hornigold’s face, until there was nothing left but blood and teeth and the echoes of his perfect promise bouncing off the canyon walls. Billy woke up some mornings, unable to feel the splinters in his heart from all the days his wardens had swung their hammers on it. He hadn’t felt any that morning, lying in Vane’s arms, and it some ways that was worse than always feeling it. Because it would always came back to him eventually, like now, the reminder of how much less of a person they’d made him, and he was never sure if the wooden frame that held him upright could stand such heavy blows for much longer.

“You want us to just idle here and let you kill us?” said Flint, seemingly unconcerned. “ _You_ two?”

Dufresne sneered and said nothing, like a proper guard dog. And Hornigold said, “Me. Mr. Dufresne here. And the posse we garnered up in Boulder yesterday morning. Some fifteen men behind you since daybreak, I’d reckon.” He paused. “Yeah. I think I hear them coming.”

So did Billy. Without the trot of their own horses, he could hear now what Vane was hearing, the gallop of a stampede following their blazed trail.

Billy turned back to Flint, desperate for some inkling of a plan. His horse fidgeted beneath him, sensing, perhaps, his anxiousness. Flint gave no indication towards what he was thinking. Billy was prepared to see if he came up with anything in the next minute, but decided right then and there if he hadn’t moved an inch by the time the posse showed up, he’d start shooting and force their hand with the whole killing thing.

Because Flint didn’t have a map to give them. He only had Silver, and Billy had a suspicion Flint wouldn’t be giving that up anytime soon.

“Now, this is a democracy,” Hornigold called out. “Or so I’m told. So I’ll let you decide amongst yourselves.”

Overhead, a couple crows cawed to each other. The early chill had left, and sun beat down on them like a fistfight. Flint turned to look at them and said quietly, “Get ready to rabbit.”

“Forward?” Jack asked, his lips barely moving.

Flint nodded imperceptibly. “Billy and Vane out in front so Silver and Anne don’t fuckin’ shoot them as we go.”

“We’ll go first,” Silver said suddenly. “I have an idea.”

Flint stared at him for a long moment, longer than they had time for. “Is it a stupid idea?”

“Almost certainly,” said Silver with a smile. “Just keep your horse straight and fast. We’ll be fine.” Flint didn’t say anything, just stared harder until Silver grinned. “It’ll be fun?”

Flint huffed, turned back to face Hornigold and Dufresne. He nodded once. It was meant for them behind, but Hornigold took it for an answer.

“I knew you were a smart man, Flint,” he said, drawing his horse up. “If you’ll just --”

Flint’s horse darted forward like a bullet, Billy immediately following. They tore towards Hornigold, Hornigold’s guns, Dufresne, Dufresne’s shotgun, and Billy knew the surprise of them charging wouldn’t last the length it took all four of them to pass and clear them, and he wanted to look behind him to see if Vane was at his back but he couldn’t, and then he didn’t want to because _Silver --_

Silver was standing up on the back of Flint’s horse.

His feet were planted firmly on the horse’s backside, one tucked under Flint’s ass to steady him, as he fired on both Pinkertons, both frozen in surprise. His hat flew off with the speed of them racing along the path, nearly hitting Billy in the face, but he seemed to be using all his concentration on keeping upright. His bullets weren’t landing as steadily as they had at the barn. He managed to hit Dufresne’s horse, sending him rearing back into the canyon wall, and Billy couldn’t tell if he’d managed to hit Hornigold, but the Pink had ducked low on his horse, struggling to keep his hands on his guns and keep his own horse from falling into the creek.

He’d managed to get himself steady on the path as Billy passed them, as Vane passed them, as Jack and Anne passed them. Dufresne had gotten out from his horse and was aiming his gun, but Anne was returning fire and Silver had twisted around, firing over everyone’s head, and the Pinkertons once again ducked for cover.

“Holy fucking shit,” Billy said as they lost sight of them.

Silver was still standing, still twisted around with his guns aimed. He grinned at Billy. “You should always travel with a showman, right?”

“Tree,” Jack called out.

“What?” said Silver. “Oh!” He curled over Flint’s head to dodge a low-hanging branch, nearly toppling them both to the ground.

“Sit the fuck down!” Flint yelled, elbowing Silver’s side until he moved off his face. He didn’t slow down as Silver awkwardly situated himself behind Flint, except now they were back to back. He awkwardly tried to reload his bullets without looking, staring intently over Billy’s shoulder.

“They hadn’t planned to be alone when they did that,” Silver said. “They must have thought their posse was close behind. Shit!” he added as one of his bullets slipped from the holster and tumbled onto the ground, disappearing into their dust.

Billy managed to glance behind them, but he didn’t see any sign of their pursuers. Just Vane looking intent and murderous, Jack grimacing as he bent forward on his horse, Anne sitting side-saddle with one hand on Jack’s arm to steady the two of them, the other with a gun pointing outward.

He heard another curse as a bullet slipped from Silver’s grasp again. They had reached another bend in the road, it turning away from the creek, and beside the canyon wall sat a large boulder, tall as a house. Billy figured it might have been left over from someone dynamiting the mountainside looking for gold, or perhaps it had rolled down one of the peaks and had stopped where the ground evened out. But while the wall behind it slopped gracefully up towards the sky, none of the thick trees seemed disturbed. It was like God had dropped this rock here just so Silver could see it and go, “Stop! I can’t reload my guns like this.”

“What?” Flint asked, disbelieving, even as he pulled their horses behind the boulder. “Isn’t quickness your main draw?”

They were all out of breath, like they’d been the ones doing the running. Vane and Anne kept their guns trained on the path.

“Um, I believe you know first hand that I’m not _always_ fast,” Silver said, unable to resist giving Billy a short, dirty smile. His hands were shaking. “Besides, I’m not generally performing under these conditions.”

Flint paused, turned around to stare at Silver. “Have you ever stood on a horse going at that speed before?”

Silver didn’t answer, but he’d stopped loading his guns. He slid off the horse, looking up at the trees along the canyon wall, pensive.

“You fucking _idiot--_ ”

“I have an idea,” Silver interrupted, still staring.

“Oh, like your other genius fucking idea?”

He turned back to Flint, face still sure, hands still shaking. “Give me some of your rifles. I can get up on that ledge there, take most of them out while you all go on ahead. Scare the rest off.”

Silver pointed upwards, towards a thin ledge not too high on the wall. It lay ahead of their trail, obscured in part by the large boulder.  The patch was slightly bare of trees, but there was enough cover for a man to hide among them. It was what made Billy so uneasy during their ride through. Anyone could be up there, lying in wait. It was a good vantage point, not too far from where they stood that it would take long to reach, but close enough to kill, that’s for sure.

Flint wasn’t looking where Silver was pointing. “No.”

“Flint --”

“ _No._ ”

“We need to _leave_ ,” Anne growled, eyes still locked on the road. “ _Now_.”

“I’ll scare them off the chase! And then I’ll meet you at the money afterwards --”

“How the fuck will we get there?” Billy asked. “You’re the one who knows where we’re going.”

Silver glanced at him for half a second before looking away, at nobody. Then he set down one of his guns and pulling from his jacket a piece of paper. Flint’s face went still, twisted into something horrible.

Jack let out a strangled laugh. “You’ve had that the whole fucking time?”

“ _No_ ,” Silver said, but he said it to Flint. “No. I wrote it last night, while you were asleep.”

Flint was searching his face for any sign of a lie. “Why?”

Silver shrugged wildly. “I knew what we might face today. I didn’t want to risk it all sitting in my head. I didn’t want you all to walk away with nothing if I -- if something happens -- “

Flint leaned low on his horse, grabbed him by the hair, and kissed him hard. Billy knew he shouldn’t watch, but they didn’t have the time for privacy, and after his own explorations into kissing he found himself fascinated by it, by the way Flint’s brow furrowed with anguish, the way Silver gripped his arm tightly, the map crumpling against his palm. The way they inhaled sharply together, like they needed to taste each other’s breath to assure themselves they could still breathe.

Billy was fascinated -- for about ten seconds. Then his desire to live kicked in again, and he said, “We need to fucking _decide_ already.”

But Silver was pulling back, and he handed Flint the map as Flint handed him his rifle. He helped himself to a box of bullets from Flint’s pouch and said, “Go.”

Billy turned back to the road when he heard Vane whistle. But it wasn’t meant for him. Vane was standing beside Silver, looking at him intently, scrutinizing every inch of him, before jerking his head towards the back of his horse.

Silver blinked at him once. Twice. “With you?” And when Vane nodded once, Silver glanced at Flint for a moment before climbing behind him.

It made sense. Vane was a decent shot with a rifle, not to mention that Billy doubted Silver would be able to find his way out of the mountain if left alone. The man could shoot, sure, but he clearly had no understanding of the land.

Vane gave Billy that private smile of his and a wink. It wasn’t the same as a goodbye kiss but it still made every part of his inside roll like a stone down a mountain.

“Come back safe,” Flint said gruffly. “Both of you.”

Vane nodded again, and the two of them took off up into the woods, vanishing almost immediately.

Flint didn’t say anything to Billy, but the brief glance he got rattled him almost as much as everything else was. He hadn’t been associated with another person since the hangman had teased his daddy before killing him. The way people look at Jack and see Anne always, and vice versa, had never appealed to him. He’d thought he’d feel split in two, torn towards the identity of another, but it just made him feel whole. Every inch of him covered on all sides.

“Can we fuckin’ _go?”_ Anne said. In truth she and Jack were already on the trail, ready to leave them. “They’ll be fine. We, on the other hand, may fucking die right here.”

Billy couldn’t hear the sound of hoofbeats approaching, but he didn’t doubt they were there. Hornigold must have waited until his posse had arrived before chasing after them. With one last glance back to where Vane and Silver had gone, he spurred his horse onto the trail.

They ran without stopping this time, the ground rising up and around a corner, and suddenly there was the town of Nederland about a mile below. The town looked like nothing more than a church, a general store, and a row of shacks for the few who dared to live up here. The creek spilled out into a large reservoir, spread out below the mountains like a lover.

They raced towards the little town, as though it were the treasure they were hunting. The only sounds Billy could hear still were his horse’s mad gallop along the muddy road, his own heart thumping in his ears, and maybe, off in the distance, the faint echo of a rifle shot.

 

* * *

 

It took them awhile to find the right tree, so that it was nearly dark by the time they got their shovels. The map clearly said 250 paces from the last path once they’d crossed the stream at the narrowest part, but they’d spent some time deciding which spot was the narrrowest, trying to measure it by eye and then eventually gathering sticks to gage it, then when they finally started on the route but about halfway up they realized they were all counting at different paces and had to send someone back to the start to count over, and when they’d finally gotten to what the map said was the right treeline, where an outcropping of rock like a man’s thumb was visible between the gaps in the trees, they couldn’t find the marking left behind which indicated the right tree under which the treasure was buried, so in the failing afternoon light they’d had to inspect every inch of bark on every tree in the area where the rock thumb was still seen, and then they’d argued for a bit over whether the small “XV” etched above an exposed root was indeed the mark of Vasquez or not simply animal scratchings in the wood, so by the time they finally started digging Anne thought robbing banks was a whole lot fucking easier than this horseshit.

There was only one way for anyone to approach the spot safely, so she and Jack were facing that way, guns in hand. It was nothing but trees, fallen leaves, and the last streaks of sunlight melting into the shadows. Jack held both guns at his side, and she could tell by the way he carried himself he was hurting.

Behind them, Billy and Flint were knee-deep in a hole beneath the tree. They were both filthy, caked with dirt and sweat, breathing hard and not talking at all as they dug. Because Anne was on high-alert, she kept flinching towards them every time she caught a shovelful of dirt flying out the corner of her eye. Which meant she kept seeing Flint pause in his work, looking over beyond where she and Jack stood, as if watching for something. She kept seeing the sick, pissed look of frustration on his face whenever he caught himself looking, and she kept seeing him return to his digging with renewed fervor.

“Why do you think he did it?” Anne asked Jack quietly. “Why put himself at risk like that?”

Jack shrugged one-sided, not looking over. “Vane cares for us more than he’d like to admit,” he said. “Also I’m sure he just went to avoid having to do any digging.”

“Not him. Silver.”

“Oh.” Now, he glanced at her with a quick smile. “Surely that’s obvious?”

Anne scowled. Jack was the only person in the world who could be spitefully romantic. “He’s only know us two weeks. Flint can’t be that good a fuck to risk his life and wealth over.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jack, looking over his injured shoulder at Flint. “I bet he’s really intense in the sack. The man’s intense about putting on his shoes. Besides, I fell for you in less time than that, vilda cheya.”

Anne’s heart twisted the way it did whenever Jack spoke the Yiddish she’d taught him years ago. _Wild animal._ It was something she had called him often back then, as children, and he’d taken it as a term of endearment. She struggled to keep her face angry. “Your accent is still fucking shit, Jack.”

Jack smiled, like he’d done something impressive, eyes back on their wood. He said, “Well, I guess we all do foolish things for those we love, whether it’s saying the wrong thing or making grand gestures of mayhem.”

Then he holstered one of his guns and handed her a card. She held it pinched against the grip of her pistol. It had the name of the hotel in Boulder printed on the top. It was a telegram. It read:

**I’ll have my affairs settled in a fortnight stop**

It was just signed: **MAX**

“What the fuck is this?” Anne asked, louder than she’d intended. She heard the digging behind her momentarily stop before hastily continuing, since the only threat of violence was directed towards Jack and no one else.

“I sent her a message last night while I went looking for sustenance. She was shockingly quick with her reply. You know how much respect I have for those who know how to correspond --”

“Jack.”

 He still wasn’t looking at her. “I was going to wait until we had the money and were safely on our way but this afternoon proved life is just too fucking short to wait for a moment where safety is in any way our reality. Although in my message I may have indicated to her we’d already found the money, so I hope to God there’s something of worth in that damn hole or she’ll --”

“ _Jack. Rackham_.” Anne held up the card, which also meant holding up her gun. “What. the fuck is --”

“I asked her to join us,” said Jack. “Wherever we go.”

Anne stared at his profile in disbelief before looking back down at the telegram. He’d had to have been brief in his request, yet there seemed to be no hesitation in Max’s response. Nothing to question. She ran her calloused thumb over the smooth lettering. She didn’t even know Max’s last name.

Anne knew how much pride Max took in her status in Nassau, everything she’d built for herself with nothing but her own pain, loss, and blood. Her ambition was one of the things Anne appreciated about Max, and now it was just -- her affairs? Things that would be tied up in the length of time it would take to return to her?

“Why would you do this?” she asked quietly, wanting to ask, _why would she do this?_

“Flint mentioned something to me the other day, when we weren’t speaking, and I needed another aggressive redhead to bother,” Jack said. “He spoke of a way to make us work, together. Seemed to me no reason not to try. Like I said, foolish things are often done.” He finally looked at her again. “Sorry it’s not as grand as laying an ambush for some lawmen.”

She swallowed heavily against the dryness in her mouth. She felt like her tongue was nothing but stone and salt. She looked down at the telegram again. They hadn’t stopped to eat that day and she had the insane urge to swallow the card, to ease the ache in her belly and keep what they both have done inside her forever. “But you hate Max,” she said.

“We’re -- friendly,” he said. “Anyway, we talk. Mainly about you. Exchanging tips and the like. What, you think she just stumbled onto the spot right behind your knees? Come on. I know she’s good, but she’s not _that_ good.”

For a moment, Anne entertained the idea of killing them both and heading down to Mexico alone. “What.”

“I don’t know if this will work in the long run,” Jack continued, as though he hadn’t heard. “I’m certain the only time that woman has ever laughed in the company of a man was at his expense. Not to mention, if her taste for the lavish rivals my own, as I expect it does, we’ll probably be piss-broke by the end of the year.”

“Then _why--”_

“Because we have one very important thing in common.” No sunlight fell on him any longer, and all she could see was the faint gleam in the whites of his eyes. “Alliances have been forged on less.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. It was too dark to read the card anymore but she still held it in her fingers anyway. The corners fluttered in the wind like a shiver.

Jack said, “Are you upset?”

But she was trying to think, and Jack knew her well enough to let her do it silently and carefully. She was trying to think what, exactly, this all meant. What this meant for them. What would it look like? The three of them, no bonds other than the ones they formed themselves, seeing the world together? Mexico? Mount Jack-and-Anne-and-Max? What would their days look like, the three of them in a world like this?

What would their nights look like?

Suddenly the flicker of the telegram felt like a fucking tornado in her hands. She tried to forget she ever thought it, but it persisted, covering her like the very night around her now, because they may be rich within the next few moments, but they wouldn’t be so frivolous as to waste money on a second bedroom.

Anne had never been accused of being a very imaginative person, but now her mind conjured up a hundred different detailed pictures. Max’s fingers sliding into her beside Jack’s cock, both of them touching her from the inside. Anne warm and wet between them, sitting on Max’s face while blowing Jack. She could imagine the symphony of their sounds togethers, the arrangement of their movements in different beds across the globe. His sharp elbows and soft aftershave, her sloping thighs and the chill of the jewelry she liked to leave on -- there were too many sensations to focus on.

Would either of them even want something like that? Had they thought this through at all? Max had never shared her whole story, but Anne knew she had no real desire for a man’s touch. And Jack had never known another woman and had never shown any interest (the one time she’d suggested it to him, when they were much younger, had been the angriest he’d ever gotten at her, until recently). Would they want to share her like that?

Softly, with care, she folded the telegram once and placed it in her pocket. She thought, for perhaps the first time, that they might truly do anything for her, if it would make her happy. In her whole life, Anne had only ever felt powerful behind a gun. Somehow this newly discovered power felt more dangerous in her hands. She promised herself she’d use it wisely, and not that often.

Unbidden, another image came to her: Jack and Max, shoulder to shoulder, kneeling between her open legs, their tongues warring against her cunt so closely they might as well be kissing beneath her.

“Anne?”

She’d use this power wisely, at any rate.

“I’m fine,” she said gruffly, readjusting her grip on her gun. Her face felt unusually warm in the cool mountain air. After a second’s thought, she added, “Thank you.”

She trusted Jack to read her properly, to know she meant it, and she trusted him to hide his smug grin well enough so she wouldn’t feel the urge to hit him.

They focused back on the wood, but there was nothing to see, nothing to hear, so they both noticed when the sound of shovel meeting dirt was replaced with the sound of shovel meeting steel.

She turned around, as did Jack. Billy and Flint had both lit lanterns at some point, and Billy held his aloft, shock evident on his face.

They approached immediately, because the idea that anyone could intrude on this moment seemed downright absurd. God himself could not intervene.

Flint was on his knees in the hole, brushing away loose dirt with his bare hands. “Closer, Billy, I can’t --”

Billy lowered his lantern, illuminating the hole fully with bright orange light -- like a grave lit from below.

There was definitely _something_ in the ground, but Flint’s movements only revealed scratched metal and the muddied twists of fading designs. Nothing clear, nothing distinctive, until Flint’s hands swept over once more and revealed the dull gold leaf letters of HERRINGS AND FARREL, MAKERS N.Y.

Flint marveled at the safe, fingers tracing the yellow swirling lines adorning above and below the name.  He shifted back, grabbed his shovel, and removed more dirt while the rest of them just watched him work. Anne didn’t think he’d let them help if they offered.

Eventually his shovel revealed the edges of the safe. It seemed about two feet across and maybe three feet long. Anne didn’t know how much room one needed for $200,000. She had never seen that much money in her life and had no way of guessing.

Soon enough a thin handle and a brassy round combination lock were visible. Both looked rusted and unlikely to open without a kind word. Flint was about to get out of the hole before he stopped, frowned, crouched down, and wiped away the remaining dirt.

There, at the bottom of the safe, was a small scene, painted right on the metal beneath the lock. It was scratched to Hell, faded by however many years in the earth, but Anne could just about make it out -- a mountain. A river running below it, an overcast sky with a setting sun, and in the foreground a tiny silhouette of a man, looking out at it all.

She could see Flint’s eyes scanning the safe with a frown, searching for some indication of veracity, but other than a patented signature of May 1852, there was nothing else to indicate ownership. Anne understood his hesitance, his confusion. The safe was a lot more fucking ornate than what she’d expected from a legend like Vasquez, the poor widowed farmer wreaking havoc on the U.S. government for decades. It looked heavier, too, than what she expected. She couldn’t imagine how one man could have gotten it here on this rocky terrain, unable to make use of a carriage, high up on a mountaintop, all alone. And he was notorious for always working alone, wasn’t he?

It was ridiculous. They were all looking at the damn thing, right where the map had said it would be, but they were all quiet, suspicious, living in a moment they’d spent so long dreaming of, and nothing seemed completely real about it all. It suddenly seemed to Anne too easy, and off-putting. She wanted to leave it in the fucking ground.

“Well,” said Jack, speaking first. “That’s one thing to check off the to-do list.”

“How the fuck are we going to get it down the mountain?” Billy asked. “This probably weighs 500 pounds.”

“More than, likely,” said Flint, but he looked pleased to have some problem to focus on. “We’ll have to --”

Rustling, over by where Jack had been keeping watch. Woods rustled all the time, with wind and water and beast, but the sound of human footsteps approaching when they shouldn’t be was always recognizable when you spend a lifetime listening for them.

She raised her gun swiftly, saw Jack do the same. She thought Billy might be using his shovel as a weapon.

That was what was strange -- she could hear no crickets, even though it was night. Perhaps that was the problem, then: _this_ was the dream. Max’s telegram, Jack’s solution, the pit to Hell opened up by their own hands, and no crickets singing. You can’t get hurt in a dream, she knew.

You can get hurt _by_ them plenty, she also knew.

But this wasn’t a dream, because her back ached and she was still hungry and the fear in her heart was real. So when Flint climbed out of the hole and stood beside her, gun in one hand, lantern in the other, ready to give a signal, Anne was ready.

Vane stepped into the clearing. His tread, Anne figured, had been purposefully loud to avoid startling them and getting shot. She knew he could be quieter than that. His hands were up. He had no horse or gun.

He was alone.

Because Flint was right beside her, Anne could see clearly the awful expression rise on his face. She could see the moment his blood froze in his veins, when his skin whitened, when his lower lip dropped a hair in a gasp or something more agonizing.

All he said was, “What…”

“Fuckers took him,” said Vane.

Anne jerked, her gun lowering in surprise. Jack let out a low, short curse that sounded like a bark. She heard Billy drop his shovel. They all stared wildly at Vane, like he was a trick pony and they were waiting to see if he’d do it again.

Flint, however, didn’t seem to notice it. He holstered his gun and went to where his horse was tethered to a tree.

“Where did they take him?” Flint said roughly, swinging onto his saddle one-handed. He still held his candle. “Back to Boulder?”

Vane nodded once.

Flint swallowed heavily. “He was….still alive?”

Vane nodded again, somewhat more firmly than before.

“Where the Hell are you going?” Billy asked. At some point he’d picked his shovel up again.

“Back to fucking Boulder,” Flint said, as though it were obvious. Which it kind of was.

“Why?” Billy wisely kept himself out of Flint’s reach, but he seemed genuinely concerned. “I mean, I’m grateful as fuck for how he helped us escape and all. But we don’t know him. We’ve already risked everything to get this far, and now you want to do it again? For a stranger? Flint, what about the money?”

Flint looked down at Billy, then swept his gaze over all of them. But Anne didn’t see the anger she’d expected. Only more of the same fear and determination.

“You all aren’t going with me. You will see that safe come down this mountain as quickly and quietly as possible. It’s my fault he’s even here to get caught by the Pinkertons. I won’t --” He stopped suddenly, and now he looked away from all of them. “I won’t see him hanged for helping us.”

“He _is_ a stranger, Flint,” said Jack. “And you’ll probably get strung up right beside him.”

“He’s not a stranger,” said Flint. “I know him.”

He tugged on the reins of his horse, and he seemed just about to bolt when Anne called out, “What about your share? And his?”

Flint paused again, glancing back at them. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking. She knew he needed to do this, but he’d sacrificed so much for this money and to walk away from it, potentially forever, was brutal to think about. He could have asked any of them for help, if he truly believed they’d give it. Which, after all this time, seemed to be something he still doubted.

Fortunately, Jack saved him the trouble by saying, “We’ll be returning to Nassau for a brief while after this. No less than a fortnight from now. We can arrange your share to be left with someone, if we happen to miss each other.”

Flint thought about it for only a second before turning back to the woods. “Leave it with Scott, then.” And he disappeared into the night.

She watched the space he’d been in for a few moments until Jack said quietly into her ear, “I hope I don’t have to explain to you why he did that.”

“No,” said Anne. “I get it.”

Vane whistled low, staring down into the hole with a measure of surprise. He leaned heavily on one of the shovels, looking exhausted. Anne figured if Silver didn’t come back alive they’d never hear what actually happened with the Pinkertons.

“So that’s it?” Billy said softly to Vane, both of them looking at the safe. “The only words I’m ever gonna hear you say are, _Fuckers took him_?”

Vane smiled slyly at him, cupped his cheek, and whispered something into Billy’s ear. Anne didn’t need sunlight to know Billy was flushed bright red.

“Alright,” Jack said, clapping his hands once and startling them all. “Let’s lighten the mood and figure out if this has been worth all the mayhem before we figure out how to get the damn thing out of here. Who has the combination?”

“Flint,” said Anne.

Jack’s face fell. “No one else saw it?” he asked incredulously.

“Silver,” said Anne.

“Motherfuck,” said Jack, hands on his hips. They all looked down at the safe. After a long moment of staring, he added, “ _Motherfuck._ ”

 

* * *

 

_August 2, 1848_

_Johnny stood outside his home with a gun in his hand. Absently, he scratched at the new bandage covering the right side of his face, which chafed something awful in the heat. The sun still blared even as it started to set, like how Pa would stay angry right up until the moment he passed out. Dirt and sweat clung to Johnny’s face like a second skin. Earlier Doctor Hardy’s wife had washed away the blood coating his cheek and neck, but the effort was ruined the moment he left to make his way home._

_“Maybe it is for the best,” Mrs. Hardy had whispered to her husband, when they thought Johnny couldn't hear. “Now he’ll have to cover up.”_

_Johnny’s face throbbed as well as itched. Doctor Hardy had tried to give him some liquor to help with the pain before he stitched him up, but the smell of the shine caused him to retch before it even touched his tongue. So Doctor Hardy had to take a needle to him without anything to ease the way._

_“Who’s gonna pay for the thread, I wonder,” Doctor Hardy had murmured to his wife, because Johnny had showed up to his house alone, old rag pressed to the side of his gushing face. “I reckon I know who_ should _pay for it.”_

_Johnny looked up at the quiet windows where Pa slept. He’d cut Johnny, and then had gotten so upset by the blood dripping on the floor he'd turned his back to him, finishing off his bottle without saying another word, and Johnny had heard him crashing to the floor as he made his way to the Doctor’s house._

_It was a squat, ugly home. All the other homes in town had flowers; they had none. It was the only home he’d ever known, but he didn't think he'd miss it much. He tightened his grip on the pistol handle with sweaty fingers. The Hardys hadn't even noticed when he’d snuck it out of the cigar box on the mantle, along with some bullets, and walked out the front door._

_Johnny had never fired a gun before. Some of the other boys in town had once or twice gotten to use their fathers’ hunting rifles, but not Johnny. He had no jealousy towards those boys, though. He was just grateful Pa didn't have a rifle of his own._

_He scratched at his bandage again, pushed back his curly hair from his face, and let himself inside the house. Johnny had never used a gun before, but he had a good notion how they worked_.

 ____

 

_September 17, 1875_

Silver leaned against the back of his cell, staring out the small square of window high on the wall. It was too high to even see the tops of the mountains, could barely see the crack of the waxing moon from this spot. The cell was dark, and smelled like shit, and he was alone.

Earlier he had fallen on some rocks, and his whole left side ached. His face hurt from someone punching it. His wrists were tied together so his hands were in a praying gesture, and the rope accidentally served to steady his hurting wrist. He tried to focus on the bruises of his body. He didn’t want to think about anything else.

He didn’t want to think about how just one night ago he’d been looking at the very same sky out a much bigger window. In a much warmer room. He didn’t want to think about hands on his chest, in his hair. Christ, hands touching his face. He didn’t want to think about poetry.

So, he didn’t think about it.

He didn’t want to think about playing cards or making music or trying to cook on an open fire beneath an open sky. He didn’t want to think about how his hand had trembled, drawing that map by a low, fluttering candle, desperately afraid of making an error. He didn’t want to think about the words, soft and skeptical, in his ear: _we could also live._

Silver didn’t want to think about things hiding deep in the woods of the mountains, either, so he didn’t think about it. His plan had worked, and though it was a small comfort -- a comfort it still was. His plan had worked. There was nothing more to dwell on about that, so he stopped thinking about that, too.

But he couldn’t think about what he should be thinking about, namely what the fuck might happen to him now. A song kept coming to him, looping around in his mind, and he couldn’t focus. He whistled the tune absently, still staring at the fingernail moon. From this angle he could only see the bottom point of it. He thought of his wrist and nothing else.

“ _...and yet, and yet, we cannot forget,_ ” Silver sang to himself, “ _t_ _hat many brave boys must fall._ ”

A door opened suddenly in the dark, and despite himself Silver jumped. He winced as his ribs shifted, but managed to school his features by the time the two men came into view.

It was the two Pinkertons, the ones they’d met out on the road. Silver had been incredibly disappointed to find out they hadn’t been among the men he and Vane had managed to kill before getting caught.

“Glad to hear you’re in such high spirits. That’ll make things easier,” said the older man. When Silver said nothing, he went on, “My name is Benjamin Hornigold. This is Mr. Dufresne.” He gestured to the tall glass of piss next to him. “What might we call you?”

Silver said nothing.

“The hotel clerk identified you when we brought you in, as the stranger that made his way through his inn last night,” Hornigold said. “Called yourself Solomon Little. Is that right?”

Silver continued to say nothing.

“Come now,” said Hornigold reasonably. “You got no reason not to tell me. Men should only be afraid of me when I _know_ their names already. If I don’t know you, you’re worthless to me. Financially speaking, I mean.”

“Wait,” said Dufresne, shining his lantern into Silver’s eye. “I know him. You’re from that shitty little circus back in Nassau. The one Singleton went to. I saw your poster. What they call you again? Desperado?”

“Silverado,” said Silver.

Hornigold smiled. “Well, the clerk said he saw you, Mr. Silverado, traveling by your lonesome. But while his sight might not be worth fuck all, his hearing was pretty good, as was his recollect. You had told him you were attending a large, private party, that you’d tip heavily to maintain their privacy. He’s a might ornery about missing that. He also,” Hornigold said, now smirking, “heard a lot of odd noises coming from your rooms. Seemed to be under the assumption you were a degenerate and a chronic masturbator.”

Silver rolled his eye, but still didn’t say anything.

“Me, I think you were all having a go at fucking that Anne Bonny,” Dufresne added. “I’d rather stick my dick in a rattler’s mouth, but I guess I see the appeal. She’s the kind of whore you need to make squeal every once in awhile.”

Silver wanted to keep quiet, but he could not, in good conscious, allow the insult to Anne lie. Especially since he had a feeling she would somehow find out about it.

“I’m afraid neither of you are correct,” said Silver. “You see, Miss Bonny had her own room last evening, while I was holed up with Captain Flint. All night.”  He grinned at them.

Both stared at him for a moment, and Silver watched the realization dawn in both their eyes. Dufresne spat on the ground.

“So you admit to -- working for Captain Fl--”

“Just Flint to you,” Silver interrupted. “He only likes it when _I_ call him Captain.”

Hornigold sneered. “You admit to working for Flint, then?”

“Well, it’s not like I was up there, trying to fucking hunt deer, and _missed_.”

“You killed seven men, you fucking animal,” Dufresne hissed.

Silver shrugged. “They were trying to kill me first. It’s not my fault I’ve better aim.”

“You know he’s not going to come back for you,” Dufresne said angrily. “He’s left a dozen men behind to die for him before, and left dozens more filled with his own brand of bullets. He doesn’t care what happens to you, you know that, right?”

But these were things Silver was not thinking about, so he placed his tied hands on his chest and smiled at Dufresne. “Aww, darlin’, are you trying to save me from a broken heart?”

“Have you ever heard of Andersonville Prison?” Hornigold asked.

Dufresne had been about to open the cell door and attack, but he froze when Hornigold spoke. Silver also froze. He swallowed hard. He _had_ heard of Andersonville Prison.

“During the war, I was stationed there as a guard.” Hornigold’s voice was even. His face was even. He wasn’t bothered in the slightest by the look on Silver’s face. “I’ve seen the worst ways a man could die, and I’ve seen everything a man would do to avoid it. When you see men stacked like firewood, broken into pieces, caked in their own shit, and then you see the men who haven’t yet reached that fate -- the way their eyes just slide over the dead like the shadows of a sundial. Well, you stop seeing men at all, in either case. You don’t even see them as animals, either. I’ve seen starving animals, sick animals, and they know when to fight for themselves. Men like that, in a place like that, well. I guess you can only look at them like pieces of firewood. But I’m guessing you haven’t seen that, have you, Mr. Silverado?”

Silver hadn’t. He’d been too young for war, and half-blind. Sometimes, in the dark quiet of his soul, he’d always thought he’d missed out on some great story, an adventure. The way he’d heard people talk, the war either made you a hero or it made you a dead hero. Silver had never saved anyone but himself. But the much louder part of him, the parts that look like Flint’s shoulder and sound like Hornigold, make him want to get on his knees and thank a God he didn’t believe in for the flat, jagged side of his face.

“I don’t care about you,” said Hornigold easily. “I want to know where Flint went, and I want to know where that money went. But I don’t have the time for your bullshit, and I don’t have the time to break you the way Andersonville broke thousands of other better, stronger men than you. And I’m guessing, judging by your disrespect, as well as your evident perversion, that you won’t simply tell me where Flint is?”

“If you tell us,” Dufresne said, clearly realizing he was no longer playing _bad cop_ , “and we catch him, we’ll arrange for you to be released. There’s no warrant for your arrest, no one’s looking for you. You can go free.”

 Silver thought: _no one’s looking for you_. He thought: _we could also live_. He thought of all the drafts he’d made of the map because they had to be perfect, just in case. He thought of how tentative Flint had first kissed him, the softest anyone has ever kissed him before. He thought about every miserable, arduous, difficult, boring step he’d taken in his life, all based on the simple principle that he didn’t want to die.

“No,” said Silver. “I won’t do it.”

“I thought so,” said Hornigold. He turned to Dufresne. “Have Jenks bring in the case.”

“Wait just a moment,” Silver said, scrambling to his feet as Dufresne left, as Hornigold opened the cell door. “If you’re planning on torturing me for the information, it won’t work. I have an exceptionally low tolerance for pain and I’ll say anything to make it stop.”

Hornigold looked hard at Silver’s face, at the long scar. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s true. But you see, you’ve left me in a devil of a situation.”

Dufresne returned and entered the cell with an even taller man, heavily bearded and dirty. This, presumably, was Jenks. He didn’t look like a Pinkerton. He was just a pissed off local in Hornigold’s posse, and Silver likely had killed his friend or his cousin or something up in the mountains that day, if the livid expression was anything to go by.

He set down on the ground a brown case inside the cell, made of scratched leather and unadorned except for a worrisome brass crank handle sticking out the side.

"You see,” Hornigold continued, standing back. “I lost Flint because of you. I lost Vasquez’s fortune because of you. That alone warrants a beating.”

As if on cue, Dufresne struck Silver across the face. Silver fell back against the wall as pain bloomed across his jaw. He didn’t even have time to move before Jenks had him by the front of his shirt and punched him right in his only eye.

 For a moment, Silver couldn’t see, he couldn’t _see anything_ , and the panic overtook the pain. He instinctively brought his tied hands up to his face, leaving his stomach free for Jenks to suckerpunch him, and Silver dropped like an anvil to the floor. But he barely noticed, cupping his face against a permeating blackness. The dark was so profound he nearly screamed, no matter how resolved he’d been to take this beating quietly, as he had every beating he’d ever had.

But then his vision returned, had only been blocked by blood and pressure. Although now it was starting to blur slightly around the edges as his eye was already starting to swell.

It returned just in time to see two sets of feet approach. One foot caught him across the mouth, rolling him over onto his back, and another foot kicked and kicked and _kicked_ at his bruised ribs. Blood filled his mouth, and Silver couldn’t tell if it was from the abuse or from biting his tongue to keep from crying out.

“Enough,” said Hornigold after a while. “Get him up. I do actually need him conscious for the moment.”

Everything stopped, and Silver was alone on the floor with his agony. It emanated through to the core of him, and the temptation to slip away into his mind was at once so strong and so terrifying. He couldn’t leave these men here alone with his body, because he didn’t want to die, no matter how many of his bones he felt splintering, no matter how much blood was pooling in his throat, threatening to drown him. His mind was a constant litany of _get up, get up, get out, you’ve had worse, you’ve had worse, but get up get up get up get out get up out go get up get up you’ve had worse get --_

He was on his feet, and he thought for a second he’d actually done it himself, taking two steps forward before a hand was grabbing him by his hair, yanking him backwards. The eyepatch had slipped during the beating, and someone snatched it all the way off, dropping it to the floor.

“Christ,” Dufresne said. “Would you look at that? Anyone ever tell you, boy, that you’re just about the goddamn ugliest thing in the whole fuckin’ West?”

Silver had heard that before. He spat in Dufresne’s face and grinned widely, feeling his own blood drip between his teeth. “Second ugliest,” he said.

He heard the crunch of his nose breaking before he actually felt it, and Dufresne had him pressed against the wall, face still dripping with rage and Silver’s blood, looking ready to strangle him before Hornigold again said, “Enough! Tie his hands to the bars of the window there. I still need to speak to him.”

Dufresne’s glasses were askew, his breath ragged against Silver’s cheek, but fortunately all the blood prevented Silver from having to smell it. He thought Dufresne might ignore the  orders and kill him anyway, but he finally took a step back and let Jenks tie his arms up over his head.

The rope wasn’t long enough for Silver’s feet to be fully on the ground, and he was forced onto his toes. His body ached before, but the strain in his arm and leg muscles were so intense and immediate his vision blacked out again.

He came to with water splashing his cheek. He blinked at the men standing in front of him. He had no idea how long he’d been out, but it had been enough time to light more lanterns and for Dufresne to clean his face. His whole body was wracked with every kind of pain there was to feel, his arms burning from the inside, his feet shuffling for more purchase.

Hornigold set the empty bucket down and said, “That was for killing seven men and for inconveniencing me. You understand that, right?”

He was looking at Silver impassively, like Silver was a piece of firewood. Or, from this position, like a tree he was about to cut down. Silver nodded.

“Good,” said Hornigold. “So we’re beyond that now. Let us discuss Mr. Flint.”

Behind him, Jenks had opened the case. Inside was a complicated-looking machine, centered around what looked like a large magnet, with two wire coils sticking out from both ends. Jenks held the covered ends of two brass tubes attached to cables, and was poised to do -- something.

“Because of your delay, the trail to Mr. Flint has gone cold,” Hornigold went on. “We’ll send more scouts out at daylight, but I know from experience that James Flint is a man who keeps moving. By dawn he’ll probably be halfway to California with $200,000 in United States property, never to be seen or heard from again. And between you and me, this endeavor to capture the Walrus Gang hasn’t been entirely sanctioned by my superiors. I’d be the first to admit it has become something of an obsession of mine. So I have quite a bit riding on Mr. Flint’s capture.”

“ _Please_ ,” Silver said around the blood in his mouth, “I’m begging you, _please_ , get to the part where that’s _my_ fucking problem.”

 Hornigold stared at him idly before smiling slowly, then gestured to Jenks to bring the machine closer. It landed heavily beside Silver’s dangling feet. “The local doctor provided this when he learned we’d captured an apparent pervert. I think it will work well now, given our time constraints.”

 _Tell him_. The thought hit Silver so suddenly it felt like another blow. He didn’t know enough about the area to convincingly lie, though. Not in his current state. _Just tell him the truth._ Flint would likely be long gone by the time the Pinkertons get there. _Just tell him._ He couldn’t focus on anything else the electrodes in Jenks’s hands. No one was coming to help him. He had no money, no promise, no reason to not _just tell him_ and save himself from what was coming. He only ever knew how to save himself and he’d done it perfectly his whole life so why not _just tell him_.

Flint would likely be gone by now.

W _e could also live_.

Likely.

“I can see you thinking, Mr. Silverado.” Hornigold had approached from Silver’s blind side, and his voice sounded almost apologetic. “But I don’t have the time to go chasing after the first thing out your mouth. There comes a point where I’m able to completely trust anything a man tells me, but I’m sorry to say -- we’re not there yet.” Delicately, he unbuttoned Silver’s shirt and let it hang open. But between one movement and the next, Hornigold had ripped a large hole in the undershirt, exposing the bloodied skin of Silver’s stomach.

 “Let me do it,” said Dufresne, holding his hand out to Jenks. “I want to."

“Those were _my_ friends he killed, you bastard!”

“I fuckin’ said _let me._ ” And Dufresne had a badge and a gun on his belt, so Jenks reluctantly handed him the electrodes.

Silver couldn’t help it -- he trembled. He arched away uselessly, toes slipping, wanting nothing more than to slip into the cracks of the stone wall like dust.

Jenks cranked the handle, and the sizzling spark of life was immediate. Dufresne’s approach was unhurried, or maybe everything just seemed to move slower, thicker, the crackling tubes in Dufresne’s hands drifting like clouds with the turn of the earth. Then, they touched him, and Silver’s eye clamped shut, which is how he wanted it anyway.

At first he thought Dufresne had _stabbed_ him with the electrodes, the pain was so sharp and pointed. But then it spread, vibrating to every corner of his body, all his muscles locking up. Silver lunged uncontrollably under them, trying to buck the tubes off him.

Dufresne only held them there for a few seconds before letting up. Jenks continued to turn the handle, and Dufresne brought the tubes back down again.

Dufresne laughed. “It’s making my whole damn arms shake, fuck! Christ, that feels weird.”

The pain was wild, for something so controlled. Silver could smell his own flesh and hair burning, could hear the blood boiling. This was unlike any other pain he’d felt before, which was why gave himself permission to scream. 

It rattled out of his throat, shaking like an echo starting deep inside him. Once he’d let it out, Dufresne lifted off once more.

Silver still couldn’t open his eye. Only his stomach was burned but it felt like his whole chest had been set on fire. He felt every hair on his body, and they were all in agony.

“Again,” he heard Hornigold say. “He’s not nearly there yet.”

The handle turned. The electrodes went down again. Silver screamed.

Each time lasted only a couple seconds, which kept Silver from passing out fully. He thought he was losing time, though. Suddenly one of them would be speaking to each other, but he’d only hear the end of it, and he wouldn’t remember anything he heard. Or he’d come to awareness saying something himself without even realizing, but it wasn’t any answer. It was just nonsense.

“ _All this I swallow, it tastes good_ ,” he murmured, though his tongue felt bloated and sore. “ _I like it well, it becomes mine. I am the man, I suffered. I was there._ ”

No one asked him again about Flint, or the money. He would remember that, but no one asked him a thing.

The shocks stopped for awhile. Even the handle stopped turning. The room was quiet except for Silver’s high, wet gasps and his boots dragging limply on the dirty stone. His whole body moved with the aftershocks. Suddenly he felt hands on him, prying his eye open.

Hornigold was holding his face, inspecting his eye like a doctor. If felt like a very long time had passed, like he had not seen another person in years. The lanterns were burning low.

Hornigold hummed, and dropped Silver’s head like a dead weight, his chin falling to his chest. “Almost,” Hornigold said to the others. “Almost.”

The handle cranked. Silver could see the burns on his stomach now, could see the brass tubes about to land in the same spot, but he didn’t know what happened next because he finally, blissfully passed out again.

 ____

 

Silver woke up on the floor. He was propped up against the wall of the cell again, his tied hands in his lap. The air was awash with dark blue light, creeping in through the window like an intruder. Dufresne was in the corner of his cell, pissing into the bucket reserved for prisoners. It was quiet, and they were alone. The machine was gone.

Silver’s soul was an open wound. He felt like he was bleeding out from every part of himself, though most of his anguish was localized to his stomach and his arms. He widened his eye to make sure it could still function, and apart from reopening a cut at the temple, his vision at least seemed fine. He shifted to sit up straighter, pressing his lips together tightly to keep his groan. 

Dufresne heard him anyway. He continued to piss and said, “I’m afraid you’ve missed your opportunity to comply.”

Silver took a deep breath. He did not want to be on the floor in this man’s presence. He wasn’t a proud man. A hungry childhood and a career in the circus had sucked out any pride he might have had. But he did not want to be on the floor anymore. He remembered (he didn’t want to remember, but he couldn’t help it) the way Flint had looked at him, after he had taken out Ned Low’s crew. The look in his eyes. Silver was not a proud man, but in that moment he had felt ten feet tall and deserving. He’d been able to stand beside Flint, been his equal. The first time he’d killed for Flint, it had been to save his own life and the lives of the Walrus Gang. The second time he’d done it, it had been to see that look in his eyes again.

He’d been greedy. He knew that now.

But Silver had always been greedy for something, mostly food or money or continued breath. But in the last two weeks riding with the Walrus Gang, he’d become greedy for new things, unlikely things -- greedy for a future, for companionship, for the same set of lips on his every day.

Flint had made him feel tall.

And he knew Flint wouldn’t be on the floor in front of Dufresne. So, neither would Silver.

“It’ll be dawn in a couple hours,” Dufresne said, buttoning up his fly and turning to face Silver. “And you’ve proven to be, as I suspected, completely fucking useless. Hornigold is still going to question you, and if you help us catch Flint, he promises to ensure you a proper trial.”

Using the wall, he shimmied painfully to a standing position. His legs quivered like a newborn foal’s. He wanted to move to a corner, to have two walls to hold him up, but the only corner had Dufresne’s piss. His breathing was labored, rattling in a way that would probably prove to be dangerous in the long run. But Silver had a feeling he didn’t have a long run left, so he savored each stale, gulping breath.

Dufresne didn’t stop him from standing. If anything, it seemed to amuse him. “Even before I knew you were a deformed freak, before I knew you were a fucking faggot, I knew you’d be a waste of time. You got that look like you’ve been a waste of time your whole goddamn life."

Silver didn’t say anything. Dufresne waited for a response, but Silver couldn’t find the words for what he wanted to say. He tasted copper in his teeth, his hands ached from being clenched for too long, and this man was looking at the spot on Silver’s face he wasn’t allowed to see. Silver didn’t have words.

Dufresne spat beside Silver’s feet. “Knew you weren’t worth the fucking hassle,” he said as he turned to leave.

Silver whole body was sore, weak, and each breath felt counted, ticking away to the very last. Men had often turned their backs on John Silver, and every one of them had lived to regret it.

Silver thought of Flint, just briefly, which was how he found the strength to push off the wall, wrap his tied hands around Dufresne’s neck, and pulled.

They crashed back into the wall, Dufresne sputtering and bucking onto Silver’s wounded chest. Dufresne was uninjured, tall, and healthy. But Silver was comprised of nothing but pain and blood, and he knew how to spill it and he knew how it spread. The rope around his hands kept the pressure locked around Dufresne’s throat, the wall behind them kept his elbows steady,  and he kept tightly pulling and _pulling_ until the fight dwindled out of Dufresne like stars leaving a morning sky. And when he finally stopped struggling so much, Silver was able to move one hand to the side, the other cupping Dufresne’s chin, until the pull became a twist, and the sound of the crack echoing through the cell was almost as beautiful as Anne Bonny’s singing.

He held onto Dufresne for a moment, trying to catch his breath, even though the weight on his stomach was agonizing. He could see Dufresne’s eyes were closed, his glasses askew once more, and Silver felt the hysterical urge to bite down on the glass, shatter them between his teeth, which made him think maybe Hornigold had successfully broken him, or made him lose his mind.

He finally let the body drop to the floor. Then he stared at the open cell door. It was just -- open. But he couldn’t make his legs move. It would require stepping over Dufresne and they just couldn’t lift that high.

It hardly mattered anyway, as Hornigold appeared only a few seconds later. Behind him stood Jenks and a couple other members of the posse Silver hadn’t managed to kill. They all paused for a still moment, eyes darting back and forth between Silver and Dufresne’s body.

Then, Hornigold’s gun was out, aimed at Silver’s heart. For the first time since they’d met, Hornigold looked riled. He looked _angry_ , and rattled, and that alone was enough to make Silver momentarily forget about his pain.

He smiled widely at Hornigold, tied hands held up in surrender. “Guess we’ve finally reached that point, huh?”

His voice was hoarse from screaming, he couldn’t stand without the wall’s help, but he felt almost _good_ . He’d never felt this way before. He’d never killed anyone without a gun in his hand. At some point in his life, shooting a man had felt about the same as shooting a target. You didn’t get to be as good as he was if you thought too hard about what you were aiming at. All that mattered was where it _was_. He hadn’t expected this, how good it felt.

Hornigold pulled back the hammer of his gun, but stopped. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and when he looked back at Silver it was the same cold expression as before. He lowered his gun.

“You’re not going to kill him?” Jenks shouted, pushing his way forward. “He killed your man! He killed my friends! He’s a fucking --”

“I’m a _lawman_ ,” Hornigold said, and if Silver had any energy left he would have rolled his eye.

“You think he’s still going to tell you anything? He --”

“No. He’s not going to say anything.” Hornigold hadn’t looked away from Silver yet. “He dies. And I don’t think a trial is exactly necessary here.” He looked at Jenks. “You have a gallows, yes?”

Jenks nodded, grim smile growing beneath his beard. “Got my wagon hitched up by the hardware store.”

“Go get it.” Hornigold glanced down at Dufresne once more. “I want to see this bastard dance.”

Hornigold pointed the gun at Silver again, encouraging him to stumble into the corner while two of the men dragged Dufresne’s body away. Then, they locked the door and left Silver alone again.

Silver wanted to think, but once again his mind couldn’t focus. He wanted to plan an escape, or remember a moment in his life fondly, or maybe even find someone to pray to. But he could only focus on the pain in his body, and the cell just kept getting lighter.

When Hornigold returned, still armed, and lead Silver out of his cell, he could only remember Flint’s voice again, low and disbelieving in his ear: _We could also live. I’ll believe it when I see it._

Sun was beginning to streak across the sky as Silver was paraded to the center of town. Word had clearly gotten out, not only of what had happened in the mountains, but also what he’d done in the jail. Townsfolk gathered close, sneering at him, gawking, yelling. A couple young men threw rotten fruit, although their aim was shit.

Hornigold essentially had to drag Silver the whole way. His legs were still aching, his muscles spasming uncontrollably as he worked to keep himself upright.

“I’m still going to find him, you know,” Hornigold said as they approached the splintering frame the town used as a gallows. “I’ve hunted down smarter men, and you’ve given me something I was lacking for a long while. A fresh _cause_ . Do you realize how singular that is? A _good reason_? Mr. Silverado?”

“John,” said Silver.

“What?”

“My name is John Silver,” he said, “you fucking cocksucker.”

Hornigold hummed. “I’ll be sure to give the _Captain_ your final regards then. Once I find him.”

Silver needed help getting on the wagon, positioned under the gallows. An angry crowd -- too early in the morning to be considered a mob yet -- was gathered around, eager to watch. Jenks was already on his wagon, a rope in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other.

The rope was already tied to one post. Jenks threw the noose end over the scaffold, then looped it around Silver’s neck. He stuck the cigarette in Silver’s mouth.

“This is the only courtesy we’ll allow you,” said Jenks, “as good Christians.” 

Silver stared at him. “Thanks,” he said between clenched lips.

“Good citizens of Colorado,” announced Hornigold, facing the crowd. Silver would have sighed if it hadn’t meant dropping the cigarette. “You are here today as witnesses to God’s justice. One of Satan’s own devils, this ugly monstrosity you see before you, cast out of Hell, to wreak havoc on our precious world, is finally here to get his due comeuppance.”

The crowd cheered and clapped, but seemed to Silver just a little bit wary. They didn’t know Hornigold. This was a simple town, with hangings mostly sent to Denver to be carried out. They were clearly unsettled by Silver and his face, but Hornigold had been the one to recruit the men who’d died in the mountains. Silver got the impression they’d be happier to see them both gone.

“The creature you see before you is none of than John Silver,” Hornigold continued. “A fearsome member of the Walrus Gang. He alone was personally responsible for the shootings of the seven honest, hard-working, God-fearing men of this town, including your local Sheriff, as well as the brutal, horrific murder of an officer of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. As such, he will be hanged from the neck, until his soul is once and forever more dragged back into Hell from whence he came.”

Now the crowd seemed more agitated, a few of the younger people roaring with anger. Silver saw a couple of others wander away. Everyone wanted this to be over with except Hornigold, it seemed. Silver had always presumed his death would involve a show of some kind, and he would have thought he’d welcome it. But just like always, he never felt more alone or more tired than when standing before a large audience. He was ready to go.

Jenks lit his cigarette and jumped down off the wagon. Hornigold turned to Silver and said, “May God have mercy. I mean, He never has before, but maybe you might get lucky.”

Three things happened in the next three seconds:

Silver inhaled sharply, the tip of the cigarette smoldering as he took in a mouthful of smoke.

Hornigold leapt off the wagon and landed on the ground.

The pop of a gun going off in the distance was heard.

Everyone froze, an audible gasp going up in the crowd. Hornigold even ducked. The sound was unmistakable, as it happened again, and again. Rapid gunfire coming from the west, down the end of the road, and just when everyone realized at the same time the sound was getting closer, four men turned the corner of the road, hollering, waving their arms in a panic.

Then came the rider, dressed in all black, the blasts from his shotgun bright in the early dawn.

The crowd at Silver’s execution dispersed in every direction, screaming, knocking into each other in a desperate urge to escape. Some bumped right into the wagon, causing Silver to stumble where he stood, still with the noose around his neck. Everyone seemed pretty distracted, so there was really no reason not to take it off. So he did. For perhaps the first and only time in his life, he didn’t mind not being the center of attention.

The only people remaining were Hornigold and his posse, who were about to choke on their own misplaced sense of loyalty. They all had their guns out, but they seemed too shocked to move, even Hornigold. Because the rider wasn’t slowing down, gunning down the other townsfolk stupid enough to draw on him.

Silver sat down on the wagon, leaning heavily against the scaffold. It was more of a collapse, really, but he hadn’t dropped the cigarette, so he inhaled deeply again. Hornigold saw the movement and stared wildly at him, mouth agape, gun pointed at nothing in particular.

“Looks like he found you this time,” Silver told him.

Because he recognized that body, despite it not being light enough yet to see the face. Silver only had the one eye, but it was a good one. He knew that body. He had held that body, he had fucked that body. He had ridden with that body pressed against his for weeks. There was no one else it could be.

They said no one was coming for him. They hadn’t prepared for anyone coming for him.

And Flint took advantage of that, dropping his shotgun when it emptied and unholstering his pistols before any of Hornigold’s posse thought to fire on him. Even then, their shots were missing widely as Flint’s horse sped towards them. Some of the men were hunters, sure. But it was something else entirely to aim for a beast charging right for you.

Flint gunned down two of the men by the time Silver could see enough of his face, twisted with rage, splattered with blood, intent on his goal. Silver thought he should have tried to get someone’s gun, maybe help out, but he was hurting too much. And anyway, he could barely take his eye off this sight. Here was the outlaw feared across the country. Here was the monster they had created. It was the most beautiful thing Silver had ever seen.

Flint wasn’t the marksman Silver was, and not every shot hit its intended target. Silver wasn’t worried about a bullet hitting him where he sat, though. Today didn’t seem to be the day he would die.

But it was Silver’s nature to count bullets, so he knew the exact moment Flint ran out. His horse was right in front of the gallows now, where even a child could hit him accurately, but Flint didn’t even pause. Dropping his guns, he leapt off his horse, letting it run off down the road.

He landed in front of Jenks, who looked too startled to do anything but stand there, gun raised. Jenks paused for maybe a second, but it was all the time Flint needed. He took his knife (and even with Silver’s quick eye, he hadn’t seen him pull it) and caught Jenks with it, right across the throat. Blood sprayed everywhere, in the dirt and all over Flint, but again, he seemed to barely notice. He tossed the knife in Silver’s direction, but that wasn’t where he was aiming.

The knife struck Hornigold in the chest. Hornigold, who had been shooting like a madman at Flint, cried out and fell to the ground. Silver blinked down at him, then turned back to Flint in awe, cigarette dangling from his open mouth.

Flint had taken Jenks’s gun and was now using his massive body as a shield, moving steadily closer to the gallows. The remaining members of the posse kept hitting Jenks, until Flint was finally able to put a bullet in all of them.

He dropped the body and walked easily to the gallows, where Silver still sat and Hornigold still lay. Flint didn’t look at Silver yet, but he stood over Hornigold, who was still somehow alive, gasping wetly at the sky.

Flint didn’t say anything. If it had been Hornigold standing over them, he would have said something. If it had been Silver, even, he probably would have said something. But Flint just stared down at him for a moment before calmly shooting him in the head.

Silver pitched his finished cigarette in the pool of blood forming around Hornigold’s body.

Then they looked at each other.

Silver, suddenly, realized what he must look like. The bruises, the swelling. His left side uncovered and exposed. Even though Flint was covered in blood, Silver wanted nothing more than to be hidden. He wished the pain was strong enough to make him pass out again, to skip over this part and wake up on a morning he didn’t look like this.

“You know, as I raced here through the night,”Flint said, his voice trembling slightly, “I told myself, ‘He’s not a wanted man. They’ll interrogate him, they’ll arrest him and probably see to trial him or jail him, but they won’t kill him outright.’ What the fuck did you do to warrant a hanging at dawn?”

He removed the scarf from his neck. It had only caught some of the blood, and he used one side to wipe his face. The scars there looked starker, given how clean the skin was. Then he stepped over Hornigold’s body, and pressed the cleaner side of the scarf against the cut on Silver’s temple.

“I killed that other Pinkerton,” Silver said. “Dufresne?” He lifted his tied hands to help apply pressure to his wound.

Flint grimaced at his wrists, and leaving Silver holding the scarf, he bent down to remove the knife from Hornigold’s chest. He wiped it clean on his thigh before sawing through the ropes. “Good. He was a prick. How’d you get his gun?”

“I, uh,” said Silver. “I didn’t.” He lowered his hands and the scarf into his lap, unable to keep them raised.

The ropes snapped. Flint looked up at him, and he had that same look in his eye that he did in the barn that morning. “I thought you were only deadly with a gun in your hands,” he said.

“I thought you weren’t coming for me,” said Silver. He couldn’t take the expression Flint was giving him anymore, and looked away, trying to shake the feeling back into his hands.

Then, he felt warm fingers brush against his neck, where the noose had been, and cool lips pressing into the crown of his head. Silver released a tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his shoulders relaxing even as he curled around the soft cotton of Flint’s scarf.

Flint rested his forehead against Silver’s. They looked at the tangle of torn rope, bloodied scarf, and bruised fingers as Flint’s hands covered Silver’s own.

“Of course I came,” Flint said quietly. “I had to tell you how fucking stupid your last plan was.”

Silver laughed, and it turned into a cough. “You’re right. It was awful.”

“The fucking worst.”

“You can come up with all the plans from now on.”

“Too damn right.”

“I particularly liked this one. Just charging right into town alone, without any cover or enough bullets, not dying by sheer fucking luck and aggression. It was marvelous.”

“I told you,” Flint said. “These people are always a fucking disappointment.”

Silver kissed him, then, just a soft press of lips against his. His whole body still felt broken, crumbling, like pieces were going to start falling off him at any moment, but he hoped to God the last piece that fell would be his lips, so he could keep doing this until the last second.

But Flint pulled back reluctantly. “We need to go. These people will only remain startled for so long before they start firing back, and my horse has run off.”

Silver struggled to his feet, throwing his arm over Flint’s shoulder to stay upright. They gingerly stepped over Hornigold’s body without looking.

“Where are the others?” Silver asked as they maneuvered around the corpses. “What about the money?”

“Oh,” said Flint. “About that.”

Silver stopped walking, so Flint stopped walking. They were in the center of the road.

“ _What?_ The money wasn’t there? Was my map wrong?”

“No, the money was there,” Flint assured him. “Or at least, a safe was there.”

“What happened?”

“Vane showed up and told us you’d been taken.”

Silver stared at him hard. “You left them behind with the money.”

“Yes.” 

“The band of outlaws.”

“....Yes.”

“And now you don’t know where they are.”

“To rescue you!” Flint insisted.

“With _my money_ ,” Silver insisted.

“I know where they are,” Flint said. “I _think_ I know where they are.”

“Captain, I may lose consciousness at any moment,” said Silver, “but just know I’m losing consciousness _angrily_.”

Flint opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when they heard it. Down the road, the sound of horses, and wheels, was audible in the stillness that always followed a firefight. It could have been some rich fuck, but unlikely at the speed it sounded like it was moving. It was likely, then, a stagecoach, the type driven by Pinkertons or U.S. Marshalls or some other kind of official who wouldn’t take kindly to all the bodies lying around.

“Come on,” Flint said, but he took a step away and Silver cried out, stumbling to one knee. “You can’t walk,” he realized.

Silver shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together as he rode through the muscle spasm causing his whole body to cramp up. He wanted to tell Flint to _go_ , but given what he’d just done to save Silver, it seemed highly unlikely.

Flint left him on the ground while he ran to some of the bodies, looking for loaded guns. He came back with two, standing in front of Silver. The sound of wheels was growing louder.

“Give me one of those and help me stand,” Silver demanded. “I’m very fond of you, Captain, but I won’t die prostrate at your feet.”

Flint seemed to think about it for a second before handing Silver a pistol and hoisting him to his feet. It took every ounce of his being not to make a sound.

Then they waited, guns raised, as the stagecoach approached at a dangerous pace. Two riders ran beside it, silhouetted against the rising sun. Silver wanted to say something to Flint, but Flint was holding him under his arm, his thumb running soothingly against him, and so he grazed his own fingers against Flint’s neck, and hoped he got the message. The tightening of his grip on the gun seemed to indicate he had.

The stagecoach approached, but Silver never fired unless he knew at least idly where his target was, and he guessed Flint was waiting for his cue because he also held back.

But then the stagecoach passed inside the shadow of the building as it slowed in its approach, and without the blinding sun, Silver could see who sat on the reins. He lowered his gun immediately, and nudged Flint to do the same.

The stagecoach stopped in front of them. The two riders also stopped.

“This looked fun,” said Jack, glancing around. Then he looked at the two of them. “Christ. What the fuck did they do to your face?”

“Nothing much,” said Silver. “This is how I always look.”

Jack grimaced at Vane, who sat beside him on top of the stagecoach. “Fuck. Sorry about that.” Then he brightened. “Hey, does that make me the prettiest one in the Gang again?”

“No,” said Flint, Anne, and Billy.

“I am very curious,” said Jack, pointing at Billy, “as to who _you_ think is the prettiest.”

“How the fuck did you get here so fast?” said Flint. “And why are you here in a stagecoach?”

“Vane is much better at traversing the mountainside at night than you are,” Billy said, smirking slightly.

“As for the stagecoach,” said Jack, “we realized we all might have been prepared for our fortunes mentally, but not physically. The safe was fucking huge, it nearly killed our horses getting it out the ground and onto the road. So we stole this in Nederland. Much faster. Our final act of theft, I assure you.”

“And you came back, because?” Flint asked. His grip hadn’t relaxed on Silver or the gun any.

“Because you’re our fearless leader, and we respect you too much to leave you behind.”

“You also ran off with the fucking combination,” Anne said. “Can you get the fuck inside so we can _go_?”

Flint helped Silver inside before climbing almost on top of him. There wasn’t much room in the carriage. Most of it was taken up by a large, filthy safe. Silver sat on one side of it, Flint on the other, both needing to keep their feet on the seats because there was no where else to put them.

“Here,” said Anne, sticking her head inside. She handed Silver her handkerchief. “You don’t _need_ to wear it, but. If you want it.”

Silver took it gratefully, but when he went to thank her she was already gone. He delicately tied the kerchief back over the left side of his face, and already he felt easier.

Flint looked much comfier than these cushy seats, and even though it was close to agony to do so, he crawled over the safe to lie on top of Flint. The soft grunt Flint gave as Silver collapsed on him made the pain worth it, as did the hands coming up to hold him. He shifted so his face wouldn’t be resting on the blood soaked clothes, instead resting his mouth against Flint’s collarbone.

The stagecoach jerked forward as they finally raced  out of Boulder, Colorado.

“You came for me,” Silver murmured. He wanted to sleep for a week, but he didn’t want to lose another moment not talking to Flint. “They said you wouldn’t.”

“Well, they were wrong,” said Flint, rubbing Silver’s back. “And dead. So that makes them doubly fucking stupid. Hey!” he yelled suddenly, making Silver wince. “Jack! Wherever we’re headed now better have a fucking doctor.”

Silver’s smile curled up against Flint’s skin. “Wherever we end up,” he said, “it better have a lot of food and a big, comfortable bed.”

“And a doctor.”

“A big bed,” Silver repeated, “and a big fucking lock on the door.”

Flint snorted, and it made Silver tilt higher up on Flint’s body. “I’ll even let you feed me steak in it.”

“I’m glad you’re having a nice reunion,” Billy yelled from outside, and Silver thought he actually might mean that, “but if you don’t open that safe and tell us what’s in it, I’m going to kill you both and just blast the damn thing with fucking dynamite.” He definitely meant that.

Silver and Flint looked at each other. Flint was frowning at him, looking nervous and pissed about it. Silver quirked his eyebrow at him, stroking Flint’s beard for him. Flint looked like he’d rather exist in this stasis forever, in this not knowing, content to lie there in each other’s arms. They didn’t need money to be there.

But they were hurtling out of town without any means of control, so there had little choice. Silver chose to kiss him one last time before things changed, and Flint chose to kiss back. Then they both turned towards the safe. Fortunately, the door was facing them, so they didn’t have to move far.

Silver reached for the combination lock without getting off of Flint. “Sixteen,” he said softly, turning the dial. “Six. Twenty-four.”

Over the stamp of horses, the turning of wheels, the wind rustling by, they both heard it: the quiet, inner click.

From under him, Flint grasped the rusting handle. He tugged hard, once, twice, before it finally turned down with a loud shriek of steel. The stagecoach bounced on the road. Morning sun filtered through the curtains.  Flint pulled on the handle, and the safe door swung open wide.

* * *

  



End file.
